The Home Environment market is seeing positive growth underpinned by strong housing demand, while eCommerce penetration continues to soar, according to an industry report released by the Consumer investment banking team at Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL).
Read the Consumer Insider – Housing Demand, eCommerce Fuel Growth in Home Environment: https://bit.ly/HomeEnviroInsider
The housing market has proven to be a silver lining to the COVID pandemic. Consumers shifted spending to home investment while remote work reinforced the demand for more amenable living spaces to adapt to a new normal. Interest rates, though currently rising, remain at historically low levels, which has also stimulated demand, drawing buyers into the market.
Inside the report, BGL examines dynamics in the housing market that are outliving the pandemic and translating into increased demand for home furnishings and goods.
- Favorable Demographics – Millennials are entering the peak age for homeownership, accounting for the largest share of first-time home buyers, and homeownership rates will continue to increase.
- Deurbanization – COVID introduced new homebuying patterns with remote work behaving as a catalyst for an urban to suburban shift, which is expected to continue for several more years.
- Hot Single-Family Rental Market – Low housing inventory coupled with strong demand has driven record-setting prices, dynamics which are fueling growth in the single-family rental market, which is seeing significant pent-up demand from renters and potential first-time and young home buyers.
- Growing Online Sales – COVID reinforced already growing eCommerce penetration in the Home Environment category, which is seeing double-digit gains as consumer purchasing shifts online.
The report also features an exclusive roundtable with investors in the Home Environment space who discuss the current state of the market and longer-term outlook. “The pandemic accelerated the adoption of eCommerce purchasing behavior,” shared Scott Evans, a Managing Partner at Guardian Capital Partners and report participant. David Fiorentino, a Partner at Prospect Hill Growth Partners, commented on the outlook for eCommerce market share post-COVID, saying, “COVID brought in new cohorts of customers to the eCommerce channel that have now become familiar with eCommerce as a means of making historically brick and mortar purchases. Even as consumers are returning to stores, COVID accelerated a permanent shift in market share.” Supply chain disruptions and perspectives on the Home Environment category’s near- and long-term outlook are also discussed.
