Texas Home Remodeling and Building Industries Boom

Weathering the Housing Market Storm

The United States Census Bureau released several detailed reports about the home remodeling and construction industry.  Texas has been lucky; through the last recession we fared much better than most other states.  While areas of New England, California, and Chicago suffered tremendous busts when the sub-prime mortgage lending bubble burst; Texas only felt the shock waves.

The following data from the U. S. Census Bureau’s construction and housing reports page  shows how resiliently and confidently Texas home builders continued to invest.  Keep in mind when you look at these numbers as well that the recession started in 2008, just one year before these statistics were extracted.

Texas has the highest number of new houses built in 2009, with over 84,400,000 new home building permits issued there between 2009 and 2010.  Florida has the second highest amount of new home build authorizations in 2009 with 35,300,000 new home permits printed that year.  California squeaks into a close third with just 35,100,000 new home building permits approved in 2009.

Texas, Florida, and California are all very expansive states.  Of these three geographically gifted states California has the largest population with over 37 million residents.  That’s almost the population of Texas and Florida combined.  However, Texas issued about 2 ½ times more home building permits than California in 2009 despite having a third of the population.  This indicates that California was hit by the recession harder; more people are choosing to age in place or opt for home remodeling over buying a new home in California.

What are the Most Popular Remodeling Projects?

According to the U. S. Census Report, the most common project in the United States (by far) is bathroom remodeling with over 14.5 million homes reporting a bathroom remodel completion in 2009.  In second place is kitchen remodeling with over 84,520,000 reported renovations, and bedroom remodeling comes in a close third with over 74,000,000 homes completing a bedroom remodel in 2009.  Look at the table below to see for yourself.

What do These Numbers Mean?

Of the 145 million homes that completed bathroom remodeling projects in 2009, nearly 59 million of these households spent less than a thousand dollars.  Many of these must have been DIY jobs, because the cost of even a half bath remodel costs more than a thousand dollars in materials alone.  This report also indicates that people hire outside remodeling companies most to perform the following jobs in descending order.

• Roofing
• Bathroom Remodeling
• Carpet Installation
• Kitchen Remodeling
• Vinyl Window Replacement
• Ceramic Tile Floor Installation

The only surprising revelation from this data is that homeowners hire outside remodeling companies to remodel their kitchens less frequently than they do to install carpet.  However, the high cost of remodeling a kitchen compared to installing carpet could account for this difference.  The validity of the reports is also questionable, because according to the data only about half of homeowners who have in-ground pools put in hire an outside company to build them.  DIY videos are very helpful, but it is unlikely that they can walk you through the grueling process of designing a pool, excavating the pool site, and building the pool.

We hope you find this information useful. Please leave a comment or share any related remodeling statistics or links that we may have missed on these topics.  We love a good remodeling discussion.