PRESS RELEASE

CONTACT: Elizabeth England: (617) 495-7640

CAMBRIDGE, MA – The measured growth in home improvement spending by homeowners appears to have eased in the third quarter of 2005. According to the Remodeling Activity Indicator (RAI) devised by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, homeowners continued to invest in their homes by spending over $ 139 billion on home improvements and repairs over the past four quarters. Spending has increased 4.4 % since the third quarter of 2005.

The Director of the Joint Center, Nicolas P. Retsinas, remarked that, “after strong gains in home improvement spending in late 2004 and early 2005, the pace of growth appears to have slowed in recent quarters.”

Kermit Baker, director of the Remodeling Futures Program of the Joint Center, points out that, “key drivers of home improvement spending—home sales, employment increases, and income growth—remain steady, so remodeling spending should continue growing modestly over the coming quarters.”

The RAI is regularly released by the Joint Center’s Remodeling Futures Program during the third week after each quarter’s closing—two quarters before the U.S. Commerce Department’s data on residential improvements and repairs is available—in order to provide industry with an accurate and timely reading of national remodeling activity levels. The next release date is January 13, 2006.

The Joint Center’s Policy Advisory Board and other industry sponsors support the Remodeling Futures Program. The development of the new RAI is detailed in a working paper entitled W04-4: "An Improved Method for Estimating Homeowner Improvement and Repair Activity Through the Remodeling Activity Indicator."

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies is the nation’s leading center for information and research on housing in the United States. Established in 1959, the Joint Center is a collaborative unit affiliated with the Harvard Design School and the Kennedy School of Government. The Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies is Nicolas P. Retsinas. For more information, the website is www.jchs.havard.edu.

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