By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Shares of Lowe’s lower after reporting better than expected earnings and growing sales from professionals offsetting weakness in the DIY consumer. Homeowners continue to spend less on big ticket items though amid broader economic uncertainty. Angie’s 2025 state of home spending report found that 48% of homeowners are more stressed about home repairs than they were in January. Joining me now, we’ve got Angie Hicks, Angie co-founder. Angie, we got to ask you first and foremost, where is a lot of the stress coming from for homeowners?
00:53 Angie Hicks
I think quite honestly when it comes to taking care of your home, it’s for most of us our largest asset. And we tend to spend, you know, one to two percent of the value of the home on improvements and repairs each year. So it really comes down to kind of budgeting and understanding what needs to be done around your house and how to best invest those dollars.
01:24 Speaker A
And so from what you’re hearing, are there massive delays in in some of the DIY projects that homeowners would typically be doing?
01:46 Angie Hicks
Well we did run a pulse survey to update our state of home spending in April and saw that 70% of homeowners said they had delayed a project. But I think what you really need to understand here is what that, you know, actually means. We also found that they’re doing more maintenance which is very common, it’s a very common phenomena when we see an economic downturn or uncertainty. Because what they want to do is not be surprised. They don’t want to be surprised by spending, so they’re going to make sure they’re getting their air conditioner tuned up so it doesn’t go out on the hottest day of the year. Have the roof inspected so they don’t have a leak. So they become just much more conscientious about those day-to-day things. And they’re going to do less discretionary items, more non-discretionary. So maybe we’re not putting the swimming pool in this year, but we are still going to make sure that we’re maintaining that house. So you see some shifts going on there, and quite honestly some of those DIY projects might fall in that discretionary bucket that they might choose to hold off on.
03:03 Speaker A
Yeah, we had a perfectly good blow-up pool at one point when we were going up. So ultimately just go stand next to a hose for a little bit. Yeah, exactly. So, as you think about some of the lower cost alternatives to full remodels, because those are some of the projects that homeowners will take on if they’re looking to maybe list their home within the next 12 months, what are you hearing on that front? What’s the pulse?
04:10 Angie Hicks
Yeah, so a lot of times uh kitchens and bathrooms are always at the top of the renovation list. And you know, a lot of times people think are these tens of thousands of dollars of projects. Yes, they can be. Some can be very big projects, but there are a lot of things that you can do to make it even a more efficient uh project economical and get functionality. For example, in your kitchen, if you want a fresher look, consider updating the countertops. If you’re going to avoid updating the cabinets, that’s where the big money is and do not change the footprint of your kitchen if you can, because if you start moving plumbing and electrical, the cost starts to add up. Same kind of thing in the bathroom. Think about maybe changing out the flooring, updating a sink, but if you’re going to redo your whole shower, it’s going to be more expensive.
05:24 Speaker A
And so how are the pros on the other side of this responding to what homeowners are ultimately signaling to them, the market, the the professionals that are also working on these projects?
05:48 Angie Hicks
Absolutely. So the professionals are working with homeowners more, talking to them about alternatives. You know, I’ve I’ve just had our Angie uh Pro Council meeting the other day. We were talking a lot with pros about the different things that they see where they can kind of help homeowners make trade-offs and make good decisions about how to invest those dollars. Uh and you know, and and they’re looking for uh uh sorry, and they also are looking at ways that they can aggregate projects together. Uh so you know, if they offer both window cleaning and gutter cleaning, suggesting consumers get those done together be so that it’s one trip and it can be a more efficient economical job.
06:53 Speaker A
What is the decision tree for whether or not you should actually be starting a new project right now?
07:04 Angie Hicks
Well, I mean, first you need to think about your budget. Look at your budget, understand how much you have to spend. And also I always encourage homeowners to do a walk around your house and evaluate everything you see because you might choose to do the wrong project, and we don’t want people to do that. You know, so you want to start with structural problems, then go to mechanical things and then work your way to more cosmetic kind of more upgrade type items. So do that so that you know, like, hey, my refrigerators on its last leg. Uh you don’t go and put a new deck on and then realize come August that you need to buy a refrigerator and you feel the crunch.
08:05 Speaker A
Angie, great to see you. Thanks so much for taking the time as always.
08:12 Angie Hicks
Thank you.