If you’re going to be stuck at home, you probably want your home to be in good condition, or at least a safe condition. Unfortunately, many people aren’t able to get necessary home repairs done, and 70% of people have delayed them while the pandemic is still going on. 47% of those who have delayed repairs say it’s because the economic situation has landed them in debt. It’s not clear why the other 53% are delaying repairs, but we can speculate that they either want to avoid going into debt or don’t want contractors in their houses in the middle of a pandemic.
It’s a bigger issue than it may seem, since 31.7% of respondents admitted to even delaying critical repairs, and 21.7% say the deferment is potentially dangerous. Nevertheless, 59% of respondents considered this an acceptable risk given the circumstances. In the context of financial struggles, the most commonly deferred maintenance is for broken appliances, water damage, electrical issues, and roof repair. Some maintenance, such as water damage, are particularly dangerous to delay since they will only get worse and more expensive over time.
As far as repairs that were done, just over half of the funds needed to complete the repairs were drawn from savings accounts. That doesn’t necessarily mean they paid for it only with savings, though. Many people evidently drew from more than source of funds, given that the totals from other categories sum up to much more than 100%. The largest of these other categories were credit card at 36.7% and checking account at 31.3%.
Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash
More: https://www.searshomeservices.com/blog/keeping-up-with-home-repairs-during-a-pandemic