Home Depot customers are putting their big home-improvement projects on hold as worries about the economy and interest rates have them sticking to smaller projects.
While people may be painting again and working on their yards, they aren’t pulling the trigger on larger improvements, said Home Depot CEO Ted Decker during Tuesday’s earnings call.
These bigger home-improvement projects are usually financed through loans, while smaller projects can be completed with cash payments, which plays into consumers’ hesitancy, said Home Depot chief financial officer Richard McPhail.
Home Depot’s latest earnings report includes its busy springtime season, where both homeowners and contractors take on more projects due to warmer, dryer weather. Its spring Black Friday sales event saw a boost in its appliance, gardening, plumbing, and electrical departments, associated with smaller projects. Still, sales were not as pronounced in the kitchen countertops and bath categories that are typically associated with larger projects, McPhail told CNBC.
