In early March, Home Depot and Lowe’s, two home improvement retailers, released their financial reports from the fourth quarter of 2012. The results were fairly good, with Home Depot seeing a same store increase of up to 4.6% in 2012, while Lowe’s stores showed a smaller increase of 1.4%. Fitch predicts that both stores will show a growth between 2 and 4% in 2013, which is slightly less than their previous estimate and following an estimated growth of 4.5% for 2012. The increase in home improvement spending is expected to increase the sales of existing homes by 7.7% this year as well, while new single-family home sales are expected to increase 22%.
Read the full article here: Fitch: Home Improvement Sales Underscore Housing Recovery