{"id":530202,"date":"2010-04-16T10:50:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T14:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/business\/archive\/2010\/04\/recession-recovery-remodeling\/39029\/"},"modified":"2010-04-16T10:50:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-16T14:50:00","slug":"recession-recovery-remodeling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/530202","title":{"rendered":"Recession, Recovery… Remodeling"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Bureau of Economic Research says we’re not out of the
\nrecessionary woods yet, though some think the economy is looking up.
\nFloyd Norris of the Times, for one, thinks the numbers<\/a> are pointed in the right direction. (More over at <\/i>The Atlantic Wire<\/i><\/a>.) Restaurants certainly seem to be rebounding<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today, I stumbled across another intriguing indicator. It’s called the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity<\/a>
\n— LIRA for short. Produced regularly by Harvard University’s Joint
\nCenter for Housing Studies, the index measures “national homeowner
\nspending on improvements for the current quarter and subsequent three
\nquarters,” and aims to track “future turning points in the business
\ncycle of the home improvement industry.” The graph charts the trend.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
<\/p>\n

The plunge from 2007 through 2008 is striking. But a turnaround does
\nseem to be in the works. Harvard’s Nicolas Retsinas, who directs
\nthe Joint Center, notes that: “The LIRA suggests annual spending will
\naccelerate, with nearly five percent growth in 2010.”<\/p>\n

It’s hard to tell whether the LIRA signals a broader economic
\nrecovery. It may be that people who can’t sell their homes are deciding
\nthat, if they have to stay put, they might as well renovate. If that’s
\nthe case,  now may be the time to start that renovation project you’ve
\nbeen putting off — well before the good contractors start
\ngetting booked.<\/p>\n



\n

\n Email this Article<\/a>
\n Add to digg<\/a>
\n Add to Reddit<\/a>
\n Add to Twitter<\/a>
\n Add to del.icio.us<\/a>
\n Add to StumbleUpon<\/a>
\n Add to Facebook<\/a>
\n

\n\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Bureau of Economic Research says we’re not out of the recessionary woods yet, though some think the economy is looking up. Floyd Norris of the Times, for one, thinks the numbers are pointed in the right direction. (More over at The Atlantic Wire.) Restaurants certainly seem to be rebounding. Today, I stumbled across another intriguing indicator. It’s called the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5959,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}