Median Spend Reaches $15,000; Tile Transforms the Shower
September 26, 2024 – Houzz Inc., the leading platform for home building, remodeling and design, empowering industry professionals and their clients with all-in-one project management and design software, today released the 2024 U.S. Houzz Bathroom Trends Study*. The survey of more than 1,200 respondents found that homeowners are increasingly prioritizing their personal needs during primary bathroom renovations with the share of those focused on resale value dropping by 5 percentage points (26% in 2024 versus 31% in 2023). Additionally, the share of homeowners renovating to make their space more accommodating increased by 4 points, reaching 27%.
Regardless of the motivation, investment in primary bathroom projects continues to climb, up 11% from the previous year ($15,000, compared with $13,500 in 2022), with the top 10% of spend starting at $45,000. Reliance on home professionals also remains high, with more than 4 in 5 homeowners (83%) hiring professionals to assist with their bathroom renovations. General contractors are hired most frequently (46%).
“Consistent with past Houzz research, homeowners are renovating for the long term, making significant investments in functional spaces like primary bathrooms,” said Marine Sargsyan, Houzz staff economist. “While changes to layouts, shower area, flooring and plumbing may be unsurprising, what stands out is the growing trend towards future-proofing homes for personal use and the needs of loved ones. This shift has pushed resale value considerations further down the priority list, as homeowners focus on comfort and long-term living.”
Trends in bathroom renovations reflect homeowners’ prioritization of their personal interests:
- Sustainability: More than 4 in 5 homeowners choose sustainable features during primary bathroom renovations (84%). While more than half of homeowners opt for sustainable design because of environmental friendliness (56%), the majority of homeowners are driven by long-term cost effectiveness (69%).
- Aging in place accommodations: Accommodations for aging household members also support long-term renovation goals. Of the 64% of homeowners addressing special needs with their bathroom renovations, nearly half cite the future needs of aging household members (46%, compared with 37% of homeowners addressing current needs).
- Wet rooms: More than 1 in 8 renovating homeowners characterize their primary bathroom as a wet room (13%). Known for its open-concept design, a wet room typically has minimal to no enclosure separating the shower or tub from the rest of the bathroom. The top motivations for choosing a wet room include better use of space (66%) and universal design (39%).
- Eclectic style: While the top three primary bathroom styles remain transitional (23%), contemporary (16%) and modern (15%), eclectic style has grown in favor (5%), jumping 2 percentage points year over year, and matching the popularity of farmhouse style, which has held steady at 5% since 2019.
- Specialty toilets: More than 2 in 5 homeowners install toilets that are powered by specialty features (41%), over a third of which are built into the toilet (35%). Features include bidet seats (23%), bidet seats with water pressure (21%), self-cleaning functionality (19%), air dryers (17%) and heated seats (17%).
A Deep Dive on Shower Tile Trends
Nearly 9 in 10 homeowners opt for tile when upgrading their shower flooring and walls (87% and 83%, respectively). Ceramic and porcelain are the most common materials for shower surfaces, though some homeowners opt for marble and acrylic.
- Shower Walls: The vast majority of shower wall tiles are rectangular (82%), followed at a distance by square (10%) and hexagonal (2%). When it comes to pattern, over a third choose horizontal brick (34%) and another third install vertical or horizontal stacks (21% and 13%, respectively). Nearly 4 in 5 shower walls (79%) have medium to large scale tiles (6 inches to 18 inches).
- Shower Floors: When it comes to shower floors, tile shapes are much more diverse and rectangular (28%), hexagonal (23%) and square (22%) are all popular. Layouts are also varied, led by mosaic (19%), brick (17%) and grid (17%) patterns. In contrast to shower walls, the majority of homeowners opt for small tiles on their shower floor (65%), from 1 inch to 4 inches.
You can download the full 2024 U.S. Houzz Bathroom Trends Study here.
Houzz has a directory of over 3 million home remodeling and design professionals, including kitchen and bath remodelers, kitchen and bath designers, architects and general contractors, to assist with home projects. Houzz Pro provides industry professionals with a cloud-based, AI-powered project management and design software that helps them to run their businesses efficiently and profitably, including visual tools like 3D Floor Plans and Mood Boards that enable pros to help homeowners visualize their space and feel more comfortable moving forward with their project. Homeowners can also get inspired by the more than 25 million photos of professionally designed interiors and exteriors for inspiration and shop from millions of products, including items for the bathroom from showers and vanities to tile and linens.
*The “2024 U.S. Houzz Bathroom Trends Study” is a report of homeowners who are in the midst of, are planning or recently completed a bathroom renovation. The online survey was fielded to U.S. Houzz users from June 27 to July 30, 2024. n=1,247.
