CAMBRIDGE, MA – A sluggish economy and housing market will continue to hamper home improvement spending well into next year, says Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The remodeling market is expected to stay soft, a modest decline in annual homeowner improvement spending over the next several quarters, say researchers Eric Belsky and Kermit Baker.

 “We appear to be entering another period of softening,” says Belsky, who is managing director of the Joint Center. “The ups and downs in the economy are being reflected in home improvement activity.”

Belsky and Kermit track LIRA (Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity) to estimate national homeowner spending on improvements for the current quarter and subsequent three quarters. Measured as an annual rate-of-change of its components, it provides a short-term outlook of homeowner remodeling activity and identifies turning points in the business cycle of the home improvement industry.

“There’s not much to propel growth in home improvement spending,” says Baker, who is director of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center. “Homeowners are continuing to undertake smaller jobs, but are still nervous about larger discretionary projects.”