Industry Research
Renovation Barometer
2021Q4 Houzz Renovation Barometer - Architectural & Design Sector
Findings from the Q4 2021 Houzz Renovation Barometer, which tracks residential renovation market expectations, project backlogs and recent activity among businesses in the architectural and design services sector.
The Expected Business Activity Indicator related to project inquiries and new committed projects declined slightly to 69 in Q4 (compared to 70 in Q3): This is a result of a slight decline in new committed projects to 68 (compared to 70 in Q3). Expectations for project inquiries remained the same at 70. Among the two reporting business groups, expectations among architects increased to 72 in Q4 (compared to 66 in Q3). Following high expectations among interior designers in Q3, the group has significantly tempered their anticipation of project inquiries and new committed projects in Q3 with a fourteen-point decrease in overall expectations to 64. See additional subsector and regional data (PDF).

The Project Backlog Indicator reached 9.3 weeks nationally at the start of Q4: The overall backlog for the architectural and design services sector is a month (4.8 weeks) longer than the same period last year. Among the two reporting business groups, architects’ backlog reached 11.1 weeks (up 4.7 weeks relative to Q3), while interior designers’ project backlog decreased to 6.1 weeks (down 2.4 weeks relative to Q3). See additional subsector and regional data (PDF).
Backlogs across all regional divisions vary from 6.1 weeks (West North Central division) to 11.1 weeks (New England division) across the nine Census divisions. Compared to the same quarter one year ago, backlogs are longer across all nine Census divisions as reported by firms in the architectural and design services sector.
The Recent Business Activity Indicator related to project inquiries and new committed projects slightly decreased to 70 in Q3 (compared to 72 in Q2): The overall indicator follows new committed projects, which declined to 66 in Q3 (down five points, relative to Q2), while the recent project inquiries remained steady at 74 in Q3 (down four points, relative to Q2). Among the two reporting business groups, architects and interior designers, the overall recent activity decreased to 70 (down two points). See additional subsector and regional data (PDF).
The Q4 2021 Barometer was fielded from September 28 through October 8th and garnered responses from 232 architects and 330 interior designers on Houzz (n=562 in the architectural and design services sector). See detailed methodology here (PDF).
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