Trends move fast and your business changes even faster. It’s important to take some time to catch up on what’s happening in your trade to know how you can prepare yourself for the new year.

While some news topics, like the skilled labor shortage and disaster recovery, continue to make headlines, others like accessibility remodeling have emerged. Take a look at some of the top industry trends from 2018 and look ahead to what you can expect in the new year.

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Remodeling & Renovation

This year, we learned that more homeowners are choosing to remodel their homes rather than moving to a new one. This is because many older homeowners are opting to age in place and millennials want to make their homes their own with remodeling. According to HousingWire, housing maintenance and remodeling are growing at a fast pace.

Our data shows that while basement remodeling and finishing stayed fairly consistent with 2017 levels, homeowners are still choosing to focus on kitchen and bathroom remodels, as well as major home repairs. Here’s a look at our popular kitchen and bath remodeling projects.

Kitchen Remodeling

In the kitchen, homeowners have turned their attention to essential upgrades. In 2018, our contractors saw a 96% increase in leads for repair or service an appliance and 81% increase to install an appliance. Additionally, homeowners have been apt to repair their stone slab countertop rather than install. This is important maintenance for anyone that owns a granite, marble or quartz countertop.

One unique observation for this year is the 91% increase in demand for installation of water treatment and purification systems. With a great focus on eco-friendly remodeling, this can be a helpful upgrade for homeowners. Plumbing contractors are likely seeing the benefits as well.

Bathroom Remodeling

Another popular project for remodeling contractors is bathrooms. Bathroom cabinetry is currently trending for homeowners who are remodeling, and our data shows that homeowners are asking for new cabinet installation at almost double what it was last year. However, homeowners are keeping their plumbing in place, with data remaining almost the same on plumbing for a remodel as it was last year.

Carpentry

One new focus on this year’s year in review is carpentry work. Our data shows that carpentry pros have had a great year with an increase in leads across the board. One of the hottest categories is an installation of trim and decorative moldings as well as replacement of wood stairs and railings.

If you’re a carpentry pro, be sure to sign up with CraftJack today and start receiving leads in your area.

Exterior Home Projects

One of the trends continuing from 2017 was the focus on decking and patios. In fact, the National Association of Home Builders said that many new homes are now being built with patios. Our data reflects this trend with a 101% increase in patio installation leads over 2017.

Here are the other popular exterior projects of 2018 and some of them might surprise you.

Garages

If you’re a garage pro, you know that these projects come in all shapes and sizes. While garage door installation and repair projects decreased this year, more homeowners are looking for garage remodels, up almost 50% from last year. In fact, we recently reported on homeowners looking for large and livable garages in our Industry News: November 2018.

Gutters & Roofing

One of the top exterior projects this year might surprise you. Gutter and downspout cleaning must have been on homeowners minds, because we saw a significant increase in leads, according to our data as well as PVC gutter repair.

Additionally, roofing pros were keeping busy as many requests came in to replace an entire roof as well as repair an entire roof. Given the natural disasters that have happened around the country, this may not surprise you as much.

Pools

In the summer, pools are the perfect way for homeowners to cool off. But that doesn’t keep inground pool installation for being one of the hottest projects in its category. There was about a 125% increase in inground pool installations over 2017 with a 165% increase in inground pool cleaning and maintenance. Good news for pool pros!

Conclusion

This year has been a great year for many pros as, according to our data, we’ve seen in increase in leads for many popular projects. Wishing you the best in 2019 and hopefully, this data can help you plan for success!

Looking for a way to change your business next year? Read What Is A Lead Generation Company.