In 2023, American homeowners paid for 15.9 percent of their home improvement spending with their own hands. It is the lowest share the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies has recorded since it began tracking in 1995, when the figure was 23.8 percent.
The center published the finding on 21 September 2026, drawing on its tabulations of HUD’s American Housing Surveys from 1995 to 2023.
A slide with one pause
The DIY share peaked at 26.9 percent in 2003. Then it slid for a decade, down to 17.5 percent in 2013. The pandemic gave it a lift, to 19.9 percent in 2021. The center says the share “quickly reverted to trend” and dropped to the 2023 low.
The dollars tell a different story from the percentage. Real DIY spending hit $73.5 billion in 2005, even while its share shrank, because professional spending was growing faster. It fell to $44.0 billion in 2011 after the Great Recession, then jumped during the pandemic to $74.2 billion in 2021. By 2023 it was $64.5 billion.
Across the whole 1995 to 2023 stretch, homeowner improvement spending rose from $174.1 billion to $405.0 billion. DIY grew 55 percent, from $41.5 billion to $64.5 billion. Professional work grew 157 percent, from $132.7 billion to $340.5 billion, nearly three times as fast. The gap widened lately: between 2021 and 2023, real spending on professionally installed projects rose 14 percent while DIY spending fell 13 percent.
One caveat from the center: the two figures are not measured the same way. DIY spending counts only the owner’s materials. Professional spending includes labor, materials, profit and overhead. All values are in 2023 dollars.
Where the retreat is steepest
Kitchen and bath remodels and room additions saw the biggest drop. The DIY share of that discretionary work fell from 31.5 percent in 1995 to 19.1 percent in 2023. Roofing, windows and HVAC replacements started lower and moved less, from 16.5 percent to 13.1 percent.
Age matters too. Homeowners under 35 still do the most of their own work, but they have pulled back furthest, from 40.1 percent in 1995 to 24.1 percent in 2023. Owners 65 and over barely moved, staying between 9.2 percent and 14.3 percent.
Why contractors keep winning
Small, cheap jobs tend to stay with the owner. Roofing, electrical and structural changes tend to go to hired crews. The center points to four trends that may help explain the shift: an aging housing stock that needs roof, plumbing and system repairs; an aging homeowner population that leans on contractors; rising home equity that pays for bigger projects; and homes whose systems are more technically complex.
No one of those causes the shift alone, the center says. Together they suggest professional contractors hold a lasting role, not a passing swing. DIY has not vanished from a market far larger than it was thirty years ago.
