Royal® Building Products, a Westlake company, released findings today from its annual Outdoor Design Survey about the attitudes of homeowners in Canada when it comes to the exterior of their homes. The survey reveals that homeowners are generally happy with their homes, but when it comes to curb appeal they see room for improvement. The survey was conducted by Good Run Research & Recreation (GRRR) and gathered information from more than 1,000 Canadian homeowners ages 25 and older.

“We conduct this survey annually to get a sense of what homeowners care about when it comes to the exterior of their homes,” said Simon Bates, senior vice president at Royal Building Products. “Surprisingly, we learned that style and design are not significant factors for most Canadian homeowners, while low-maintenance products are one of the most desired home renovation trends.”

Key findings from the survey include:

The State of Home Exteriors

  • In the next two years, 88 percent of Canadians plan to make a significant exterior purchase (58 percent plan to do so in the next 12 months).
  • Very few homeowners – only three percent – want their house to be a carbon copy of their neighbors’.
  • Homeowners instead want to take aspects of the one “it” house in the neighborhood and put their own individual twist on it (45 percent).

Dream vs. Reality

  • If the sky were the limit, homeowners cite these outdoor projects as their top three in the next year:
    • Replace exterior products with “greener” options (78 percent)
    • Install exterior shutters (77 percent)
    • Enhance architectural details (75 percent)
  • The reality is the to-do list outweighs the wish list with these tasks:
    • Weatherproof for upcoming seasons (62 percent)
    • Modernize the landscaping (49 percent)
    • Update the walkway/driveway (47 percent)

Project Barriers

  • Forty-five percent of homeowners say that cost is the No. 1 barrier keeping them from starting an exterior home project immediately.
  • Homeowners rank the following attributes in order of importance when it comes to the home exterior planning process: ideas should be affordable, relatively do-it-yourself, completed quickly, inspirational and stay current with exterior home style trends.

Trends and Inspiration

  • Homeowners rate low-maintenance products as one of the most desired trends in home exterior/renovation projects (68 percent).
  • Few homeowners said they want their homes “dressed to impress” (36 percent) while even less said it just needs to look “good enough” (28 percent).
  • Canadian homeowners who plan on updating their homes within the next 12 months are 141 percent more likely to prefer bold colors and styles versus those homeowners a few years away from updating their homes.

Siding Attributes

  • Seventy-nine percent of respondents rank affordability as the most important factor when choosing siding.
  • Some homeowners though – 17 percent – say that price is their least important factor. For these homeowners, aspects such as being able to use bright, bold colors or finding a style that resonates with them are more important than price.

Click here to view the full survey results.

About Royal Building Products

Royal Building Products is a company of Westlake Chemical Corporation (NYSE: WLK). The company manufactures and distributes leading materials for the home remodeling, building and municipal construction markets. For more than 40 years, the company’s commitment to quality, innovation and customer relationships has attracted the loyalty of a growing number of building professionals, homeowners, architects, engineers and distributors to its products. With operations throughout Canada and the United States, Royal Building Products offers the renovation, remodeling and new construction industries a broad range of innovative products including siding, trim, accessories, soffit, rainware, mouldings and decking. Royal Building Products also manufactures pipe and fittings for the electrical, municipal, irrigation, plumbing and industrial construction industries. For more information, please visit www.royalbuildingproducts.com. Follow us on Twitter and “Like” us on Facebook.