America had a love affair with ‘fixer-upper’ homes. That may be over

By Samantha Delouya, CNN

(CNN) — For years, buying a home in need of work was seen as a more affordable path to homeownership and building wealth. Home makeover shows dominated TV, house-flipping became a booming business, and first-time buyers embraced the idea of trading sweat equity for a lower purchase price.

But lately, fixer-uppers have been falling out of favor.

This year, they are selling at a 14% discount compared to similar move-in-ready homes – the steepest discount Zillow has recorded in years. That’s nearly double from last year, when fixer-uppers sold for 7.3% less than comparable move-in-ready properties.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, by contrast, homes described as “fixers,” “needs work,” “TLC” or having “good bones” were more likely to sell than comparable listings, according to Zillow.

For many Americans, the math behind buying a fixer-upper no longer pencils out. Tariffs, inflation and a shortage of construction workers have made home improvement projects significantly more expensive — and often more time-consuming — over the past few years.

Dozens of first-time homebuyers who purchased aging homes in need of work expressed a common theme to CNN: High home prices and elevated mortgage rates had already stretched their budgets thin, leaving little money for the renovations needed to make their homes livable.

Juli St. George, a real estate agent in Atlanta, told CNN she has noticed a shift in her clients in recent years.

“The Chip and Joanna Gaines era has passed,” St. George said, referring to popular television personalities who rose to fame through the HGTV show “Fixer Upper.”

“Before, people were looking for grandma’s house where they get to make it their own and save up every quarter and make a new addition to their house,” she added. “It’s not happening anymore.”

(HGTV is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company.)

When Molly and Matt Dodge bought their first home in Arlington, Vermont, this year, they knew it needed work. But they fell in love with the space, just over an acre, with enough bedrooms so that their two kids no longer needed to share.

Contractors quoted between $30,000 and $50,000 to replace their septic system, and thousands more to address the home’s growing list of problems, including: leaks, mold, ant infestations and carpenter bees. The couple has already spent about $10,000 on do-it-yourself repairs.

Months into their renovation process, Matt and Molly Dodge’s optimism has faded.

“We currently wish we built instead of bought,” Molly Dodge wrote to CNN last week in a moment of frustration.

Fixer-uppers are falling out of favor

For much of the 2010s, fixer-uppers offered a relatively straightforward path to building wealth: Buy a home at a discount, invest in renovations and watch rising home values offset the costs. But that calculation has changed.

Tariffs on building materials such as lumber and steel, along with the inflation surge that began in 2022, have driven up the cost of renovations. Meanwhile, a persistent shortage of construction workers has pushed labor costs even higher and slowed projects.

In a 2025 survey by the Associated General Contractors of America, the industry’s largest trade association, 45% of construction firm respondents said they had experienced project delays due to shortages of workers or subcontractors.

In April, prices for residential construction materials, excluding energy, rose at their fastest pace in three years, according to government data analyzed by the National Association of Homebuilders. The increases have continued since then: the latest data shows prices rose 4.6% over the past year.

The shift away from fixer-uppers also showed up in earnings reports from home improvement retailers. Home Depot and Lowe’s both told investors this year that homeowners are putting off larger home improvement projects – those often associated with fixer-upper homes.

In May, Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison called it “the most difficult housing market that I have faced in this business since the financial crisis,” adding that the weakness was concentrated among do-it-yourself customers.

When Luke VanFleet and his fiancée bought their first home this spring, they expected to spend money fixing up the 700-square-foot one-bedroom cottage in Traverse City, Michigan. But they were still shocked by the prices they were quoted.

VanFleet, 29, said three contractors quoted about $40,000 to replace the home’s rotting siding and aging windows, while another estimated $6,000 to install a basic heating and cooling unit. The bids were far beyond what the couple could afford.

“We’re locked in for 30 years. We spent all this money to get locked in, and we are just trying to bring it up to a little bit more of a livable condition,” VanFleet said.

America’s homes are getting older

The average US home is 42 years old, up from 31 years two decades ago, according to the US Census Bureau.

That reflects a long-running slowdown in home construction driven by rising expenses from materials and labor as well as changes in local zoning and permitting rules and lingering scars from the 2008 subprime mortgage collapse.

The result: Millions of Americans are living in homes that need significant repairs.

In 2021, at least 6.7 million households lived in moderately or severely inadequate housing, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Problems ranged from holes in floors and roofs to peeling lead-based paint to persistent water leaks and mold.

A bipartisan housing affordability law that took effect earlier this month aims to tackle the increased cost of addressing repairs by creating new incentives for homeowners. The law authorizes a pilot program offering grants and forgivable loans to address a range of repair needs and health hazards.

For VanFleet, making his fixer-upper work means accepting that the dream of a fully renovated home may have to wait.

An accountant by trade, he’s piecing together repairs where he can, hiring a handyman he found on Facebook Marketplace for some work and teaching himself how to do other projects – with the help of Google and AI chatbots.

“We’re just going have to be creative about it,” he added.

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