Day Two of CEDIA Expo began early in the CEDIA Booth: Grant Farnsworth of the Farnsworth group shared details from the most recent Size and Scope of the Residential Electronic Systems Market survey.
Some key takeaways, first on the broader housing market:
- The median value of existing homes is up, but that number’s lower for new homes – people are staying put, and the price gap between those two types of homes is narrowing.
- People are staying in their homes for an average of 10 years – a period that was as short as seven years recently.
- The average size of the American home had stopped growing – peaking at just around 2,400 square feet – and has begun declining.
- The average income in America won’t pay for the average home.
As far as the custom integration business is concerned:
- Integrators are confident that their revenue will increase when the final numbers are tallied for 2019, but don’t expect that number to be quite as high as last year.
- The two biggest challenges that integrators say they face are the preponderance of DIY devices and a shortage of entry-level labor. (Free Plug Time: CEDIA is addressing that last threat pretty aggressively. Find details here.)
- Installers tend to expect to have more work than they actually put on the books, but the revenue from some segments is way up even though the number of projects are down. One striking example: security systems. Although the number of installs didn’t
meet integrators’ expectations over the past two years, the average bill for these jobs – including everything from alarms to surveillance – has jumped from around $1,500 to roughly $4,500.
Another issue to monitor: Farnsworth’s research says the luxury home market is saturated – people aren’t buying, big, expense mansions at the same rate they had been a few years back.
The complete report will be available to members soon.