CAMBRIDGE, September 22 — The story of the American homeowner’s relationship with the toolbox begins with a number that has been falling for three decades. According to JCHS tabulations of HUD American Housing Surveys covering 1995 to 2023, published in the 2025 Improving America’s Housing report, the do-it-yourself share of US home improvement spending stood at 23.8 percent in 1995. It climbed to a high of 26.9 percent in 2003, then declined for a decade to 17.5 percent by 2013.
The pandemic interrupted that slide — the DIY share recovered to 19.9 percent in 2021 — but the reprieve was brief. By 2023 it had fallen to a new low of 15.9 percent.
What unfolded beneath those percentages is more complicated than a simple retreat from the workbench. DIY spending itself has not always moved in the same direction as its share of the market. Real DIY spending grew through the 2000s housing boom, reaching $73.5 billion in 2005, even as its share was falling, because professional spending was growing faster.
It then declined through the Great Recession and its aftermath, bottoming out at $44.0 billion in 2011. The pandemic brought a sharp recovery, peaking at $74.2 billion in 2021, before falling back to $64.5 billion by 2023.
A market that grew, and a share that shrank
At its heart, this is a story about scale. Over the 1995 to 2023 period, homeowner spending on improvement rose from $174.1 billion to $405.0 billion. DIY spending increased 55 percent, from $41.5 billion to $64.5 billion.
Professional spending grew nearly three times faster, up 157 percent, from $132.7 billion to $340.5 billion. From 2021 to 2023 alone, real spending on professionally installed projects increased 14 percent, while DIY spending fell 13 percent.
The decline was not uniform across project types. Discretionary work such as kitchen and bath remodels and room additions saw the steepest fall in its DIY share, from 31.5 percent in 1995 to 19.1 percent in 2023. Replacement projects such as roofing, windows, and HVAC, which generally require professional expertise, saw a much smaller decline, from 16.5 percent to 13.1 percent.
Age tells its own part of the story. Homeowners under age 35 consistently have the highest DIY share of improvement spending, but they also experienced the largest decline, from 40.1 percent in 1995 to 24.1 percent in 2023.
The DIY share among homeowners aged 65 and over remained relatively low and stable, ranging between 9.2 percent and 14.3 percent over the same period.
Why the professionals are winning the work
Whether homeowners take on a project themselves or hire a professional can depend on project size and complexity, the skills and equipment required, and the value they place on their own time relative to the cost of labor. Smaller, lower-cost projects are more likely to be done by owners themselves. Larger or more technically demanding projects, particularly those involving roofing, electrical work, or structural changes, are more often hired out.
The spending figures themselves reflect that divide. Spending on DIY projects includes only the owner’s costs for materials, whereas spending on professionally installed projects includes labor, materials, profit, and overhead.
Spending values are inflated to 2023 dollars by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI-U for all items. Several structural trends may help explain why professional installation is taking more market share. An aging housing stock generates greater demand for roofing, plumbing, and system repairs, many of which require professional installation.
An aging homeowner population relies more on contractor-led work over DIY. Rising home equity enables homeowners to fund bigger, more ambitious projects.
And growing technical complexity in homes and systems increasingly calls for professional installation. None of these trends alone is the cause, but together they suggest a durable role for professional contractors rather than a temporary swing. DIY remains an active part of a market that is far larger overall than it was thirty years ago, and the shift points to a growing opportunity for professional remodelers.
What to watch next is whether the pandemic-era appetite for hands-on work leaves any lasting mark, or whether the long decline simply resumes its course.
