Remodeling activity including firms and employment is growing in the residential construction market. The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) analyzed the quarter-century of Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data and found that the rise of remodelers is not a a short term trends, but a possible market shift.
As the U.S. housing economy is currently unfavorable for middle class homeowners looking for starter or move-up homes. Life still happens to homeowners for example welcoming a child or need for multigenerational living, therefore the demand is there for more space. Instead of giving up pandemic mortgage rates, which at one point reached a record 2.7%, Â many are looking to remodeling what they already have. Financially this is supported by the rise of HELOC usage.
However, what NAHB economists present, that is not a rise from the pandemic era, over the past 25 years, the number of remodeling establishments has nearly doubled. In 2000, there were a reported 69,000 firms, while the first quarter of 2025, there are an estimated 128,000 remodelers. Remodelers now represent over half (56%) of all residential building construction (RBC) establishments.
The shift is even more relevant within the production workforce of the residential building construction industry, “More than half (51.2%) of these skilled craftsmen now work for remodeling firms, compared with roughly 30% in the early 2000s, according to NAHB’s analysis of historical data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey,” wrote Natalia Siniavskaia, NAHB assistant vice president for housing policy research.
