How Wealthy Americans Drive the Home Improvement Market

According to an article at MultiBriefs.com, a branded email publication service, not only has the home improvement market been strong for the past two years, it’s expected to remain that way through this year, with affluent homeowners driving the growth in sales. While it may seem obvious that rich folks spend more than average folks, looking at the numbers can make one stagger a bit.

Although home ownership is at an all-time low in the US, recent reports of consumer spending in 2016 indicate that, on average, affluent households spent more on home improvement last year than in previous years. Larger expenditures have become more concentrated among the wealthiest households, generally spending more of their discretionary income on home improvement than all other categories, except vehicles.

Defining Affluence in Your Marketplace

Of course, every marketer would like to target those with the most discretionary income to spend on their products or services, hoping to create a nice bump in sales. Based on the latest data, however, this becomes even more important for interior decorators who are trying to grow their business.

So, let’s look at a few of the numbers for wealthy homeowners in the home improvement market:

• Among homeowners worth $25 million or more, nearly 50% spent at least $25,000 on home improvement in 2016.
• Among homeowners worth $25 million or more, over 25% spent at least $50,000 on home improvement in 2016.
• Among those who owned two homes worth $2 million each, recently averaged over $500,000 on home improvement.

It goes without saying that all designers would like to grab a piece of these markets and, while that can be difficult, building your rep among the rich and super-rich could have benefits you may not have imagined. While the average designer should not market exclusively to these folks, devoting at least a portion of your marketing budget to them makes sense, based on the potential return.

For emerging designers, or those in smaller markets, there is also good news, in that “affluence” and “wealth” can translate into a much more accessible client base. From the article:

“Recent marketing data indicates there are about 31 million affluent households, most with incomes between $100,000 and $149,000 annually. That works out roughly to 500 households for every residential interior designer, which seem like pretty good odds for future business.”

Do your market research and discover who and where these folks live in your area. Then, find ways to let them help you drive the home improvement market in your area, by working with you.

Looking for more new design trends, tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.

Value of the Most Popular Home Improvement Projects

Besides roof replacement, landscaping, pest control, and electrical work, the most popular home improvement projects are usually focused on bathrooms and kitchens. While the most popular justification for spending money on the improvements is to improve the resale value of the home, which actually offers a questionable return in most cases, the best approach for an interior designer is usually to focus instead on client comfort, rather than increased home value.

Thanks to a piece at HGTV.com, we have evidence for this that is hard to argue against. For example, the largest return on investment can be found by performing a minor bathroom remodel. Yet, according the them, the average return at resale is just 102% on the homeowner’s investment.

Home Improvement ROI

Whether major or minor, remodeling just about any room from the original to an updated version can be quite costly. As a result, return on investment (ROI) for a remodel quickly becomes something of a mixed bag. Obviously, the nicer the original version of the space the less likely it is that making changes will affect the resale value of the home. On the other hand, remodeling a real “fixer-upper” can have a huge impact on value.

The clever interior designer will discuss these points with their client in an open and honest manner before proceeding with any changes. While you certainly do not want to discourage a potential client from hiring you for their remodeling project, working with integrity will benefit you in the long run.

The following is a list of some of the most popular home improvements across the country and, while every market will be different and values may fluctuate, the average ROIs shown here should be taken into consideration if your client mentions resale value as justification. Working from lowest ROI to highest, we have:

• Update to a living room or bonus room – At just a 66% ROI, updating the décor of a living room is the least realistic way to improve the resale value of a home. Changing a “bonus room” is not too much better at something below 73% return. This is likely because needs and tastes can differ greatly from one homeowner to another, making cosmetic changes largely irrelevant to long-term home value.
• Add a family room – Considering the expense, the 83% ROI of adding a family room must be taken into consideration. (With an average cost of over $54,000 and a return of about $45,500, this is a serious question.) On the other hand, adding a space that is well used and loved by the clients has real value in the present. This should be the most important reason for adding a family room to an existing home.
• Replacing windows – With a nearly 90% return on investment, putting in new windows has some appeal. Perhaps more important though is the fact that new windows can save on energy costs for the current homeowner. Be advised, however, that for really hot climates (e.g., Phoenix and Las Vegas), replacement windows make little difference and will return only about 62% on investment.
• Basement remodels – Hugely popular almost everywhere, a basement remodel offers about 90% ROI. Again, due to the expense of remodeling such a space (about $51,000 national average), the focus should be as much on satisfying the immediate needs and comfort of the client as it is on adding value to the home.
• Adding outside space – Much like windows and basement, the value of making changes to the exterior of a home with a new deck, patio or porch will not exceed the investment (about 90% ROI). Other changes to the exterior, even something as simple as a new coat of paint, on the other hand, will offer an average of 95% ROI.
• Kitchen remodels – One of the top two most popular remodeling projects across all markets, changes to the most popular room in the majority of homes, the kitchen – offers a pretty decent ROI. While a major change to the kitchen can return about 91% of the cash invested, a minor remodel offers a nearly 99% ROI. Such a project would be largely cosmetic, with changes to paint, wallcoverings, flooring, and countertops. Swapping out the appliances at the same time would constitute a major remodel.
• Remodeling bathrooms – Perhaps the most popular remodeling project of all, making changes to bathrooms offers a strong return on investment, depending on the size of that investment. Again, a minor remodel is more likely to boost value with an average 102% ROI, while a complete overhaul of a bathroom offers something in the neighborhood of a 93% return.

While it’s not a complete fiction that home improvement projects and home remodeling can increase the value of a home, boosting the value above the cost of the project is not guaranteed. The key for the sharp designer is understanding your market, and knowing which of these popular home improvement projects you can count on to help you boost your client’s ROI and close the sale.

Looking for more new design trends, tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.

Spring Design Trends for Outdoor Living

Spring has sprung and, though it may not seem like it in certain parts of the country, it’s time for all designers to begin thinking of what their clients might enjoy when outdoors. Beyond landscaping changes, this year is seeing some interesting spring design trends for the deck, patio, and backyards.

The latest trends in landscaping reflect the desire to bring the indoors outside; to create comfortable outdoor environments that are as functional as they are beautiful. There’s also a shift toward sustainable landscapes that reflect a renewed sense of mindfulness for the Earth and its ecosystems.

It’s important to remember that the backyard is a very private space for most homeowners, yet one which they also enjoy sharing with others. This can make the design of outdoor spaces particularly challenging as they must meet the needs of the client comfort, while also making something of a statement to their guests.

Backyard Design Trends for Spring 2017

With these things in mind, we offer a peek at what you may see enthusiasts of backyard living adopting this year:

Bespoke outdoor living – A fully customized yet livable space outdoors offers multiple opportunities for creativity and innovation from the designer. As more homeowners take entertaining outside the home, many year ‘round, landscapes have become extensions of interior spaces, including the furniture and appliances.

Themed spaces, fire pits, brick ovens and grills, sitting areas with multiple levels, dining areas, fireplaces and fire pits, romantic bedroom areas, yoga gardens, sports areas, and even full kitchens are taking backyard entertaining to a level well beyond simple patios and decks, turning the contemporary backyard into a retreat from the everyday world.

Softer, more calming colors – With nature as inspiration, soothing pink and blue hues will be seen in backyards across the country this spring. In everything from plant life to furniture, from heritage rose bushes, Catherine Woodbury daylilies, Angelique tulips, blue lace delphinium, French hydrangea to sofas, settees, and throw pillows, the colors and shades of outdoor living will reflect a sense of caring for the planet.

High-tech moves outside – As a natural extension of taking indoor living outdoors, today’s most popular technologies will certainly follow, backyard Wi-Fi and TV installations leading the way. Further, creative and functional lighting, with dramatic and boldly colored lights, twinkling accent lighting in walkways, and low wattage LED lighting solutions will be important to the conscious homeowner who chooses to spend more time outdoors.

Water features – The techniques used to manage storm water will no longer be hidden from view. Rain barrels, rain gardens and stone retaining walls add stunning dimension to lush landscapes while serving an important purpose of collecting, cleaning or stopping the water. In fact, water and other non-plant features, including sculptures or pottery, are becoming focal points in landscapes.

“Naturescaping” reaches full bloom – Growing in developing environmentally conscious landscapes will reach a zenith this year, with ever more homeowners focus on their personal environments. Selecting and growing native plants to attract birds, insects, and wildlife, as well as landscapes that require minimal effort to maintain, will become increasingly important to the outdoor living enthusiast.

For many interior designers, the job this year will move outdoors, as a larger number of homeowners take their entertaining, and their lives, into their backyards. Have you seen other movements toward changes in the design trends for outdoor living in your area? Please them in the comments section below.

Looking for more new design trends, tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.

Timeless Interior Decorating Advice

Interior design clients who wind up dissatisfied with the changes they ask you to make for them tend to have certain things in common: poor decision making, too much focus on the details, beauty over functionality – or functionality over beauty – just to name a few. Since the client rarely accepts blame for their dissatisfaction, it’s important for every designer to keep these common problems and timeless interior decorating advice in mind when bidding on a job.

While different clients will have different needs, and some will prove more challenging than others, there are a variety of design and decorating challenges that present themselves on a regular basis. The sharp designer is aware of these and has answers to the most common of them.

5 Typical Interior Design Challenges

• Big Picture Focus – Keeping your client focused on Big Picture, whole-home solutions, rather than details like this or that rug in that or this space, will help them understand and appreciate the vision for their project that you share with them. Maintaining balance within a particular space is important for long-term comfort, while “making a statement” can detract from that balanced look and feel. When your client seems to become lost in the minutiae, ask them to step back and keep the larger vision in mind.
• Style Choices – In real estate, the most important characteristic is “location, location, location.” For an interior designer, it’s “style, style, style”. Determining the character of a space, along with a style that will either enhance or diminish it based on the client’s wishes, will enable you to proceed with confidence and conviction that you’re providing what the client needs. Their lack of confidence will lead your client to make timid choices, so reinforce their style choices and move boldly forward.
• Artwork Must be Loved – Never let your clients choose a piece of art simply because it fills some empty wall space or because the main colors match their furniture. Art should be uplifting, provoke thought, take the viewer to new places or create a reason to pause and enjoy. Art is personal, so help your clients find pieces that reflect their passions, spirit or outlook on life.
• Paint and Wallcoverings Require Patience – Often, the process of choosing paint and wallcoverings requires more time than the application of either. Here, patience truly is a virtue, for the client and the designer. Since colors and textures can vary greatly when moving from store to home, the best choice is to perform in-home testing whenever possible. Ideally, your clients will be living with these choices for a very long time so, it makes sense to be patient with them when they make these choices.
• Balancing Price and Value – While high-end furniture may enhance the look and feel of a space, it is not always the best value for your client. Sure, “something cheap is eventually expensive” but, every client must work within a budget, which means that you must do likewise. The smart designer leads her client to make choices that offer the most “bang for the buck”; choices that enhance the vison and style you agreed to achieve when you began.

Are there other common design problems that, based on your experience, you would add to this list of timeless interior decorating advice?

Looking for more new design trends, tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.

Interior Design for Disaster Clients

Are you a couples’ therapist, counselor, or coach? No, you’re an interior designer who is just trying to help them create a beautiful, livable space. If you’ve worked with many couples, you know that a consultation with the pair of them often feels like a therapy session, with you being the psychologist. Here’s a little help when you have to perform interior design for disaster clients, as we call them.

When Wants Exceed Budget

“We want the best, but our budget is low.”

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Champagne taste on a beer budget.” While there is nothing wrong with wanting the best, two of the most common issues with couples is that they often have a different understanding of what the best is, as well as how much they can afford to spend.

The Solution:

Playing the referee in such a situation can be tough so, the first thing to do is guide them gently toward a list of priorities they can agree on. Next, stick to those priorities as tenaciously as possible, in your interest as well as theirs. Then, set aside a part of the budget for some extra expenses. If you do get trapped into a fight when your clients argue over whether they should go for a more expensive version of the couch or not, don’t forget to remind them about their initial priorities and, remember your set-aside in the budget which you can offer to use to cover this upgrade.

A wise piece of advice here is not to take anybody’s side, but help your customers find the balance with a minimum of your time taken.

Accommodating Conflicting Tastes

“I want the same style everywhere.”

Men and women often have different aesthetic tastes. Women lean more toward decorative solutions, while men tend to be more minimalist. When these style visons clash in the same home, the designer’s life becomes difficult, at best.

The Solution:

This type of couple not only makes your job harder, but it also creates tension between your clients, which can lead to more conflict and increased determination to “have it their way.” If you come up with the controversial requirements, try taking the least controversial parts of both of them and organizing them into an accommodating design.

If you can’t find a compromise solution, try to give each member a certain area of control: let one define the color scheme and the other go for furniture selection. You can even go so far as to award each of them a section of the house; a “his space” and “her space.” Remember, talking about their aims and priorities in design will always help to guide you – and them.

Limiting Change Requests

“We’ve decided to go a different direction.”

It’s often difficult for a homeowner to visualize the changes they ask you to make for them. Seeing the reality can lead to them changing their minds. Plus, if they have differences, and those differences are discussed outside your presence, you’re going to get plenty of change requests.

The Solution:

Again, setting priorities before you begin work will help you here. Also, before you start the project, agree on the number of amendment sessions to be included within the scope of your changes (this is a good practice for any client). This agreement will at least protect you financially. Another good practice is to discuss reasons for any change requests that are introduced.

Explain to your clients that this way it will be easier for any participant of the process to share the same vision. By reminding them of the thought process upon which the previous solution was accepted, you will be able to protect those parts of the design that you find most important, as well as to call upon logic instead of emotion.

Clients Who Don’t Communicate

“He (or she) wouldn’t understand so don’t tell him (or her) we talked about this, OK?”

One of the more dangerous (to you) places to be caught is between clients who don’t communicate with each other. If one of them is not ready for an open discussion of the choices being made, they will try to approach you separately as a way to “get their way.” The interior designer who accepts this role does so at their peril.

The Solution:

The best thing you can do here is to make the specs and goals of the project as transparent as possible. Using professional design software to track changes and progress helps you easily collect product information from any webpage into professional specification list with simple clicks.

Working with couples can be challenging in the extreme, requiring you to employ your skills as a communicator and amateur therapist. If you set priorities for them at the beginning, stay on top of every aspect of the project, and keep the lines of communication open, you are far more likely to smooth the path and meet the challenges of interior design for disaster clients.

Looking for more new design trends, tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.

When to Ignore Feedback

We all have egos. We all enjoy praise and resist, even resent disapproval. None of us are perfect and, when you deal with clients in a creative field like interior design, criticism will be an unavoidable part of your life. After all, we’re not dealing with a black and white world of simple metrics and schedules; but a space where personal tastes, style, and aesthetics predominate.Such a world is rife with feedback, both positive and negative. Understanding the nature and value of each, to you and your clients, will go a long way toward helping you provide better services to your clients, while not feeling abused by their criticism.Sticks and StonesFirst, an ego bruise has never killed anyone. Mistakes happen and, if you make one, the best thing you can do is take responsibility for it, learn from it, and move on. Unwarranted criticism is similar – consider the source and, if you do not respect the person’s opinion, it has no value. Again, move on.When criticism may be warranted but is vague or off-point, it’s easy to get frustrated. Often when hearing something like that, you’ll know intuitively that the critique is valid, but you also realize you don’t have enough information to correct it.When this happens, it’s up to you to get what you need so, ask follow-up questions to get to the root of the problem. The person offering the criticism will appreciate that you're trying to understand their needs more fully and, ultimately, you will benefit from a better understanding of where you may have fallen short or underdelivered.Ignore Dubious Sources of CriticismWhen you take professional feedback personally, you do yourself a disservice. You also negate the input of the person offering advice – advice that may be helpful.Of course, the source of the feedback matters. Past clients, professional associates, even friends and family may have valid judgments to offer that will help you in your professional life. Take what they have to say to heart and make the changes needed to improve your service, relationships, and your business.For your peace of mind, you must learn to ignore negative criticism that is unwarranted, or that comes from a source with the goal of causing you pain. Yes, there are people out there who only want to belittle others but, again, if you do not respect their opinion, you should be able to ignore them with ease.One more thought: Do not accept praise from such a source either. Believe me, if their negative critique of you has no value, neither does their positive opinion. Eventually, they will show their true colors again and, if you believe they may have changed, they will only hurt you when they revert to their negativity.Looking for more new design trends, tips, and ideas? Get in touch with TD Fall today.