Insight #2: Home Spenders in 2020 Look Much Like Home Spenders in 2019

Established, suburban, family-orientated – not the fantasy young couple but certainly spending, and certainly a worthwhile market. The only market worth developing, in fact.

Almost without exception they are mature (aged 45+) and have made the most of advantageous years in better markets by investing in property and super.

They are in established households – they have occupied their residence for 10+ years and have mature multi-gen families.

They are in steady jobs – 10+ years with the current employer. They either own businesses or are seniors within them. They might be working in government, health, aged care, food production or education.

Insight #3: Available Time – the Main Driver of the new Renovation Boom

Despite the difficulty of managing the necessary protections, an increasingly home-based workforce is ‘getting around’ to those long-overdue jobs.

Employed Australians, now armed with a billion extra hours, have to use them on something. Ask any working person and it’s usually the time, more than the money, that stops things from happening.

In Australia we live in a ‘renovation culture’. According to the ABS, 2019 was a renovation boom year. The desires that drove that live on into 2020 for those who have the financial foundation.

Insight #4: Preparing for Multi-Gen Living

With an eye on what’s to come, these Gen X and Boomer renovators are preparing space for returning children, for parents to move into, or for whatever else arises in this strange new world.

The desire to de-stress family living is something that came up again and again in the precursor discussions that led to this poll. Extra bathrooms, living areas, attics and kitchen spaces were perceived as essential to cope with family living. Parents are facilitating the studies of adult students as much as acquiring space for their own projects.

As Local councils are increasingly allowing duplex living, more families are taking up the chance to have more than one generation live on the same block of land, or to make money from the second dwelling. The desire expressed is to “live in one and live off the other”.

Insight #5: Budgets are Modest, Locations are Suburban

The spenders are in suburban locations and, somewhat surprisingly, around regional centres. They are expanding families or tree-changers moving to areas where space is more affordable.

The language of spending is restrained. We are generalising, but this is a community that wants “to finally have a good family entertaining space with quality fittings – but does not want to go over the top”. Eyes are on property values to the left and family needs on the right.

Download the full report and poll summary here.