Outer space is, of course, the final frontier. But from a remodeling perspective, outdoor-living projects are also a quest for space—for entertaining, for cooking and eating, or for just hanging out with family. They can be seen as the final frontier because backyards and side yards often take second priority behind kitchens, bathrooms and other interior remodeling projects. Today, there is increasing evidence that outdoor living projects have become a higher priority with clients.
According to a recent Qualified Remodeler survey, 79.8 percent say they have “designed and/or built” an outdoor-living project for clients in the past 12 months. By comparison, when the same question was asked of QR readers just before the start of the pandemic in 2020, only remodelers in the South (79.5 percent) could report levels of outdoor living activity in this range. Back then, 65.4 percent of remodelers in the Northeast said they had completed an outdoor-living project in the previous 12 months, compared with 63.2 percent in the North and 66.3 percent out West.
Share-of-wallet is also on the rise, the new research suggests. Forty-three percent of our respondents ranked “full outdoor-living programs with many spaces” a number grade of 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 represents “very strong” client interest. Another positive indicator: 48.7 percent of all remodelers say they now actively market their outdoor-living project services. This is up from 38.5 percent who said they marketed outdoor-living services in the spring of 2020.
Space exploration is a constant for homeowners, particularly those with growing families. Today, they are increasingly finding that space in their yards.
