Home Upkeep Averaging $10K Annually

Honey Homes has announced the results of a new report which uncovered key pain points homeowners face in keeping up with ongoing upkeep and repairs. The data, uncovered during a national survey of 1,000 homeowners in October 2023, illuminates how the needs and expense of maintaining a home are having a major impact on household decision-making.

“Due to high real estate prices and interest rates, current homeowners are hesitant to purchase a new home and become saddled with a bigger mortgage. At the same time, for many, improving or just maintaining their current home continues to be a challenge,” said Vishwas Prabhakara, Founder and CEO of Honey Homes. “This is amplified by the stress and difficulty of finding reliable and affordable home service vendors. Collectively, this report underscores the acute need for solutions like Honey Homes to exist and alleviate homeowners’ burdens by providing convenient, accessible, and trustworthy home maintenance.”

According to the study, U.S. homeowners are spending an average of nearly $10,000 ($9,924) each year on upkeep, repairs, and maintenance of their homes. Seventy-four percent of homeowners who are more likely to look for a new home instead of investing in upkeep on their current one cited the expense of home maintenance as a factor.

In collecting the data, a random double-opt-in survey of 1,000 homeowners was commissioned by Honey Homes between October 19-October 20, 2023, and conducted by market research company OnePoll.

Respondents also report that broader economic concerns are also top of mind. Among those who are more likely to invest in upkeep rather than look for a new home, 71% felt inflation has reduced what they can spend on a new home while 47% say interest rates are too high to take on a new mortgage.

Homeowners said they had an average of nine tasks on their home to-do lists and procrastinated for four weeks on completing them. Fifty-one percent of those more likely to look for a new home instead of investing in upkeep on their current one felt their upkeep/maintenance needs take too much time, while 42% of those same homeowners said they cannot do the upkeep themselves, while 35% said their home upkeep was too difficult to manage,

The top five most procrastinated tasks cited by homeowners included:

• Repairing sticky/loose cabinet drawers/doors: 64%
• Mounting items on the wall: 55%
• Patching, paint touch-ups: 55%
• Hanging mirrors, artwork, etc.: 50%
• Furniture assembly: 48%

Trustworthiness and reliability of home service providers was a major concern of respondents, as 57% were procrastinating on their home to-do list because of the difficulty finding a skilled and trustworthy trades worker. Forty-two percent who have found and have hired a trades worker report having been ghosted by them, while 21% of homeowners were uncertain whether the workers they hired were going to deliver the results they wanted.