Rising Financing Fees to Impact Home Improvement Industry

This is a snippet of Pro Remodeler's annual Thought Leader Predictions round-up featuring 11 remodeling leaders. Click here to read the whole story.

Growth in 2024

We had challenges with lead flow and our call center in 2023, which caused us to miss out on some revenue. We’ve made the necessary changes in these areas to grow by 15% in 2024.

We’ve also launched luxury vinyl plank flooring sales. We piloted it with our existing customers and started selling it in one market last year. Our growth plan for 2024 includes offering flooring in additional markets we already serve.

If the fees keep rising and we continue to face finance reject challenges, then that will impact all of us.

Challenges

Financing is a concern this year. Our finance rejects were up almost 5% last year. We still have a very strong finance approval rating, but it’s more expensive. If the fees keep rising and we continue to face finance reject challenges, then that will impact all of us.

We must align with the right bank partners and provide the best plans to our customers. We’ve scaled back some of the most aggressive financing plans because of the costs, and we’re increasing our prices by a couple of points to combat rising fees.

Another big challenge for us is that there’s a lot of external competition increasing their marketing budgets. I’m seeing very aggressive offers and deep discounts. We’ve pulled back from that approach, but we’re being forced back to it to compete for leads now.