Every two weeks, FCNews seeks out flooring retailers across the country to offer their advice on hot topics of the day. This week, we asked: What area of your business has been showing the most activity this year?
Here are their responses:
“Residential replacement is where the bulk of our business is coming from at the moment. We are unique in Albuquerque, N.M., as we have more government employees per capita than any other state. Government employees are largely unaffected by the economy.”
—Don Lovato, CarpetSourceUSA, Albuquerque, N.M.
“Residential remodel. The lack of affordable housing and higher interest rates are pushing people to stay in their current homes. I believe people are updating their homes in order to live more comfortably at the same address.”
—Jon Dauenhauer, Carpet World Bismarck, Bismarck, N.D.
“2024 has shown the largest increase in the Main Street commercial sector. In the Chicago suburbs, the national franchise market is strong with new businesses. Illinois had 174,667 new business applications in 2023, which equates to remodels.”
—Kevin Rose, Carpetland USA, Rockford, Ill.
“Remodel and commercial work have shown the most activity this year. Due to the high cost of housing and construction in Hawaii and stagnant incomes, people are remodeling their existing home rather than purchasing a new home.”
—Roy Tokuhama, Abbey Floors of Hawaii, Honolulu
“New construction is seeing the most activity this year; we are installing jobs that were previously sold and aggressively going after new builders and high-rise projects coming down the pipeline.”
—Raffi Sarmazian, Sarmazian Brothers Flooring, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
