What home projects are your neighbors searching for
Over the last two years, homeowners have been on the hunt to find new ways to love where they live. With spending on housing projects going up, we wanted to know which housing projects homeowners across the country were most curious about. Along with learning which projects are most popular in each state, we discovered a few key takeaways about what's important to homeowners right now.
Here at Angi, we know how often people think about starting a new home project because they use our platform to search for pros and projects in their area. These searches give us insight into what projects homeowners are prioritizing right now. We pulled from some of our most requested services and ran those terms through Google Trends to see which projects homeowners in each state searched for most over the last year (January 2021 through January 2022). Read on to find out if you're interested in the same projects as your neighbors!
2021 was a big year for landscaping projects. With more homeowners spending more time at home, it's likely that their desire for space led to an increased interest in utilizing their outdoor space in new ways. Landscaping was the most searched home project across the United States, with kitchen remodels, patio installation, and basement remodeling following closely behind.
While landscaping, kitchen remodels, patio installs, and basement remodels were the top searched projects overall, some clear trends around regional interests and the type of projects homeowners were interested in emerged. Here are the top trends in home project searches across the country.
With 26 states' top searches focused on outdoor projects and 25 states' top searches focused on indoor projects, it's clear that homeowners in 2021 were all about maximizing and upgrading all their space, whether it was inside or outside. Top-ranking outdoor projects included landscaping, patio install, fence installation, and exterior painting. Top-ranking indoor projects included kitchen remodel, basement remodel, bathroom remodel, and closet remodel.
While homeowners across the nation were interested in both indoor and outdoor projects, different regions showed a particular interest in certain types of projects. Homeowners in the South were most curious about indoor projects (maybe because summers can be a scorcher), while homeowners in the Northeast wanted to learn more about outdoor projects.
While smaller projects, like wallpaper and fence installation, were included throughout the list of top project searches, three of the five top projects involved major remodels. Kitchen remodeling, basement remodeling, and bathroom remodeling (coming in at numbers two, four, and five, respectively) all represent major projects designed to change or upgrade homeowners' space drastically.
Landscaping and bathroom remodel (numbers one and five, respectively, on the most searched list) ended up as two of the top five projects homeowners actually completed in 2021. Besides these projects, the top completed projects in 2021 included interior painting, smart home device installation, and flooring projects.
Kitchen remodel, patio installation, and basement remodel (numbers two, three, and four, respectively, on the most searched list) didn't make the cut of top projects actually completed. Only time will tell whether homeowners are still dreaming of their new kitchen, patio, and basement or are making plans to get it done in 2022.
While there's no exact science to choosing which home project you should complete next, experts recommend thinking about both the way you want to use and enjoy your space and the potential for your project to increase the value of your home. "You can never go wrong upgrading your kitchen, your bathrooms, or converting unfinished spaces such as basements or attics," says Bob Tschudi, a Raleigh, NC-based general contractor. "Another great investment that provides immediate enjoyment and value when selling is the creation of outdoor living spaces, such as decks, porches, a firepit, or an outdoor kitchen or pizza oven."
