Houzz Stat: Specialty firms report optimism

Specialty firms also report optimism. Building and renovation specialty firms posted a relatively high index score (72) during the third quarter of 2017. Building and renovation specialty firms include replacement contractors (for example, carpenters) and product installers, manufacturers and resellers.

Landscape and outdoor specialty firms recorded a lower score of 65. Landscape and outdoor specialty firms include landscape architects, designers and contractors; outdoor replacement trades such as pavers; and outdoor product installers, manufacturers and resellers of items such as pools and spas.

Outdoor firms’ scores drop as colder weather looms. On a year-over-year basis, the scores for outdoor specialty firms for all three components of the barometer are close to flat.

Compared with the second quarter of 2017, scores for all three components of the barometer for outdoor specialty firms have dipped. But this is to be expected as demand typically heats up during the spring and summer and then falls as the calendar shifts to the cooler months.

Northeast back on track. Notably, firms in the Northeast had a boost in optimism during the third quarter compared to one year earlier, with scores rising for all sectors other than architects. The boost signals an acceleration in midyear activity, after winter storms in the Northeast contributed to a drop in confidence scores for renovation firms in the first quarter of the year. The increased confidence in the Northeast could be due to a number of factors, and it’s hard to know which is the primary one, says Nino Sitchinava, Houzz’s principal economist.

“We may be seeing homeowners playing catch-up late in the year in preparation for the winter,” Sitchinava says. “Alternatively, we may be picking up on a broader acceleration due to more fundamental demographic and housing shifts, such as more millennials entering homeownership, and greater frequency of projects due to increasingly aging housing stock in the Northeast.”

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