Consumer Credit Card Spend for Home Improvement on the Rise

Palo Alto, Calif. -- One-third of homeowners used a credit card to pay for home renovations in 2017, according to a study released by Houzz, in collaboration with Synchrony, on the role of credit cards in home improvement financing. Consumers charged $141 billion in home improvement product and service purchases to their credit cards in 2017, a 69% increase from 2011 ($84 billion). During 2016 and 2017, consumer credit spend grew at near double the pace of the overall growth of the home improvement market, driving deeper market penetration.

Renovating homeowners using credit card financing report a median spend of $10,000, with between $1,500 and $4,800 charged to a card. Reliance on credit cards remains high even in larger renovations, with 28% of homeowners who spent $50,000 or more on their projects paying for at least part of those renovations with credit cards. Millennial homeowners (aged 25 to 34) were the most likely to use credit cards to finance renovations (41%), followed by Gen-Xers (35-54) at 34%, and Baby Boomers at (55 years of age and older) 30%.