Buying a home triggers almost identical first-year spending boosts whether the home is newly built or previously owned — but buyers of each type spend that money very differently, according to a National Association of Home Builders analysis published July 28.
NAHB economist Na Zhao analyzed pooled Consumer Expenditure Survey microdata from 2020 through 2023 using Tobit regression, a statistical method suited to spending data with many zero values, to isolate how much more buyers spend in their first year of homeownership compared with households that did not move. Buyers of newly built single-family homes spent about $8,750 more than non-moving households in year one; buyers of existing homes spent about $8,674 more — a gap of less than 1%.
The composition of that spending diverged sharply by home type. New-home buyers’ extra spending was dominated by furnishings, up $4,882 versus non-movers, and appliances, up $1,752; their increase in property alterations and repairs, at $2,116, was not statistically significant, consistent with buying a home that typically needs little immediate work. Existing-home buyers showed the opposite pattern: their largest spending increase was $5,498 on property alterations and repairs, more than double new-home buyers’ repair spending, with smaller increases in furnishings ($1,973) and appliances ($1,202).
The analysis also found the timing of that spending differs by category. Appliance purchases concentrate almost entirely in the first year after a purchase for both groups, then return to baseline levels seen among non-movers. Furnishing spending stays elevated longer, persisting through the third year of ownership. Spending on property alterations and repairs persists the longest, particularly among existing-home buyers, which Zhao’s analysis attributes to deferred maintenance needs that often take multiple years to fully address.
The findings quantify a dynamic long understood anecdotally in the housing industry: that a home sale generates a wave of secondary spending across retailers, contractors and manufacturers well beyond the transaction itself. Because the new-home and existing-home totals are so close, the report suggests the broader economic multiplier tied to home sales activity does not depend heavily on whether the homes involved are newly constructed or already standing — only on the number of sales occurring.
That secondary spending is one channel by which slower home sales can ripple into other parts of the economy. RealtyWire has tracked pending home sales activity throughout 2026 as a leading indicator of closed transactions, and new-home sales data released this month showed a modest uptick even as affordability challenges persisted — both data points that, per NAHB’s framework, translate fairly directly into downstream consumer spending.
What it means: The dollar figures and category breakdowns are NAHB’s own statistical analysis of federal Consumer Expenditure Survey microdata, using an established regression method appropriate to spending data. The characterization of remodeling spending as reflecting “deferred maintenance” among existing-home buyers is NAHB’s interpretation of the timing pattern, a reasonable reading given the data but not a directly measured cause. What to watch: whether NAHB updates this analysis as more recent Consumer Expenditure Survey years become available, given the current analysis runs only through 2023.
