With the rise of television shows and social media accounts dedicated to the “do it yourself” (DIY) lifestyle, it sometimes feels like every project can be DIY’ed. But based on experiene, we know that’s not true. We sometimes hear from people who feel a certain amount of pressure to make their home appealing and take on DIY projects -- but they don’t have the skills or confidence to make it happen on their own.
That’s why we recently worked with The Harris Poll, a well-respected public opinion polling firm, to survey Millennial homeowners in the U.S. and find out more about their attitudes about home maintenance and repairs.
The results are quite interesting! It appears that some members of the Millennial generation feel caught between unrealistic expectations and cold, hard reality. According to a our survey of more than 1,300 homeowners (conducted by The Harris Poll and commissioned by Puls), many Millennial homeowners (age 18-34) may feel pressured to project a confidence they don’t actually feel when it comes to home maintenance and improvements. The survey results show that 42% have felt embarrassed by their lack of home maintenance knowledge, while 60% feel pressure to make their home look a certain way in order to impress friends or acquaintances. The survey also shows that 31% of Millennial homeowners would be embarrassed to tell a friend that they hired someone for a home improvement project instead of opting to DIY.
With DIY projects now frequently taking on the role of status symbol, younger homeowners sometimes use peer approval as a rationale to DIY. For example, 19% of Millennial homeowners listed “impressing friends” or “sharing the before and after photos on social media” as some of the main reasons they would DIY a home improvement project instead of hiring someone. Millennial homeowners are more likely than homeowners ages 45 or older to say sharing the before/after photos on social media would be a main reason to DIY home improvements on their home (18% vs. 6%), suggesting that they may feel the impacts of these societal trends more acutely.
It’s no secret that today’s homeowners, including Millennials, may want their homes to meet a high standard for functionality, reliability, and design. However, many Millennial homeowners do not feel confident in their ability to tackle some of the day-to-day projects that could arise. Only one in five Millennial homeowners said they would feel confident enough to DIY a drywall repair project or fan installation in their own home (20% each). At the same time, less than one in three would feel confident enough to DIY an exterior painting project or light installation in their home (31% each). Only about half of Millennial homeowners would feel confident enough to mount a TV (51%) or assemble furniture (53%). Perhaps most shocking of all, almost one third of Millennial homeowners (30%) would not feel confident enough to change a lightbulb in their home.
Furthermore, nearly 2 in 5 Millennials do not find the concept of doing home improvements on their own appealing: the survey shows that 38% of Millennial homeowners would rather go to the dentist than spend all day working on home improvement projects.
For those people of all ages who need a little help with home repairs and maintenance, Puls is here to help.
You can see our full survey results and crosstabs here.
