By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Shares of Home Depot wavering this morning up, uh, marginally a bit after a mixed first quarter report as consumers reconsider home renovation projects due to an evolving tariff environment. 71% of homeowners say they put off at least one home project this year. That’s according to Angie’s 2025 state of Home Spending Report. Among the top concerns, inflation, economic uncertainty, and high interest rates. Here to react is Bill Darcy. He’s the global president and CEO of the National Kitchen and Bath Association. So Bill, you said that modest growth in remodeling projects was expected at the start of the year following a two-year slowdown. Given the concerns that we just laid out, what’s been the biggest headwind so far in 2025, and are you still confident in a return to growth by year end?
01:45 Bill Darcy
Yeah, thank, first of all, thanks for having me on. And NKBA’s 55,000 members representing our $235 billion industry for certain the tariff and the uncertainty has dampened our modest growth expectations. Um, and we see that, you know, continuing until, uh, the tariffs has fully settled. It’s very difficult for the manufacturing sector to price products and ultimately, when you get down to the designer, specifier talking to the consumer and trying to figure out, you know, what they charge for these projects. So that’s just a fundamental challenge for, uh, for our members. But in addition to that, we respect the consumer’s hesitancy to spend money that they really want to spend on the home when they really don’t know what things are going to cost.
02:58 Speaker A
And with that point, input costs have been rising significantly. Is that mostly due to the tariffs? And how are companies really responding to this? Are they absorbing a lot of these costs or are they passing those on to consumers?
03:21 Bill Darcy
Yeah, we were happy to see. I mean, in even Home Depot’s, you know, earnings that they were deciding to for the short term at least, you know, sounds like they’re going to absorb costs. And I think most of our members are trying to do the same, but it only comes within reason. I mean, certainly like fridges, ranges, dishwashers, cabinets, those are the things that have most more often been impacted by the tariffs. Um, so it’s really a matter of the specific type of product, if it uses metal or wood, and that type of thing. But definitely it’s put a damper on what we saw was a return to to solid growth. However, the home is still the most important part of our lives. And we know there’s a lot of pent up demand for consumers who want to improve their homes. And primarily that means spending money on the kitchen and the bath.
04:30 Speaker A
So what advice would you give to homeowners considering remodeling projects? Should they wait for prices to stabilize or is it better to act sooner than later given the current environment?
04:50 Bill Darcy
Yeah, if I was a consumer looking to do a project, I would continue with my planning. I do respect that, you know, you have to know what things cost. I mean, that is certainly a challenge. But I think the consumers have, you know, when you’re, you’re talking about a kitchen or a bath especially and a home remodeling project, this is not something that you just thought about five minutes ago and then you’re going to start doing it tomorrow. So it takes a lot of time to plan. I would continue with the planning, and I think again, the manufacturers and of our members are really working very hard to work with the consumers and the specifiers to come up with pricing that is reasonable. And again, I think a lot of them are trying to absorb as much of the costs as possible. So I think the, you know, if you want to improve your home, I don’t think, you know, pausing is a great idea. I think you really want to continue with your planning, listen to your specifier, listen to your hopefully NKBA member that you’re working with, and they will guide you as best they can, because again, at the end of the day, if you want to improve your home, and some of these things are obviously driven by, you know, breaks and issues in products and things, but again, on the bigger projects, um, I would recommend that consumers continue with their planning. And I think they will think things will settle down. I think we all know that. It’s just a short-term uncertainty is what’s, you know, troubling the markets at the moment.