Marketplace - Home improvement stores feel the pinch

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Retail sales jumped 1.2% in August after falling in July. But building materials stores — think Home Depot or Lowe’s — still saw a dip. That’s because stretched consumers are putting off “nice-to-haves,” like home renovations. Also in this episode: The future of global energy demand will be driven by a mix of renewables and fossil fuels, high school students take a new AP class melding business and personal finance, and neighbors organize to cooperatively buy their mobile home park.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.Read the stories in today’s episode:The countries driving energy demand growth can't wait for renewables to get cheaperKevin Warsh isn't a "data point-dependent guy"Home improvement stores take a housing market hitHigh schoolers take new AP business with personal finance classResidents of a mobile home park try to buy their community before someone else doesTurning a childhood home into a place to share with strangers

On the program today, economic data, both public and private, mobile homes, and a new advanced placement course. Don't worry, no test. From American public media. This is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdahl. It is Thursday. Today, this one is the 17th of September. Good, as it always is, to have you along, everybody.

You know, maybe the biggest change from the J. Powell Fed to the Kevin Warsh Fed, other than the straight-up word count. of their speeches and remarks, is this. As you might know, I'm not a data point-dependent guy, so I won't react one way or another to data that shows up on our doorstep. That was him yesterday at his press conference. Data, you might remember, was Powell's best friend. But as Chairman Warsh tries to help steer the U.S. economy, he is choosing a different data path.

Economist Catherine Ann Edwards wrote about that for Bloomberg, not too long ago. Welcome back to the program. Good to have you on. Thank you so much. All right, we'll get to the data point thing from the chairman in just a second. Thoughts, though, briefly on what he had to say yesterday? I think I was too focused on the fact that they had actually raised rates, and that was a very good signal. But he both had managed to do the right thing and inspire some lack of confidence at the same time. Great, great.

We all feel better now. So let's get to the data point thing. You wrote in Bloomberg the other day, a couple of weeks ago, whatever it was, that the Fed basically and Chairman Warsh is making a big mistake if they as the chairman is intimated switch or rely less on government data explain your case for me please you know so I think a lot of people can you know this will resonate that when you get a new boss they like to redo everything the way that he has done this at the Fed is he has started with these task force and there's there's a handful of them they each have a different activity but one of them is on data and for people

who are following federal data, which it's okay if you're not, the federal statistical agencies are not only vitally important, but they are under attack. And they're under attack in terms of their funding. They're under attack in terms of their credibility. They're actually under attack if it's your job and you're the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And so many of us in this advocacy community

have been waiting for the Fed to stand up for the data that they rely on. And instead, he basically came in and said, we should probably use private sector data. But I think it was just a missed opportunity to be a champion of a cause that, you know, uniquely affects something like the Federal Reserve. We should say here, there are definitely problems, as you pointed out, with some of these federal statistical agencies and the way they collect data. There's, you know, survey responses are falling and all of those things.

But your point here is that, and obviously correct me if I'm wrong, we lose something if we don't use these federal statistical agencies to their maximum. What do we lose? Oh, well, we lose, essentially, we lose minorities first. You know, we have an unemployment rate now that's delivered monthly, but it comes with about 120 others of what is the unemployment rate of young people, what is the unemployment rate of women, what is the unemployment rate of black people? We know these things because we measure them, and being measured is being seen.

And you can ask anybody who is struggling in the labor market right now and who thinks the unemployment rate is a lie, they don't feel seen. And what I thought was particularly ill-advised about it is that the statistical agencies themselves have developed a plan to incorporate private data in a way that keeps the representation that all of us use for our own advocacy and vindication. You know, we risk losing that, and he seemed to swat away its necessity. A public-private partnership, if you will, right, using the private data and the public data. They know exactly what needs to happen in the future. I mean, the agencies are not under some type of delusion that there's going to be a magical turnaround to people's ability to respond to a survey. they want to incorporate private data, but they want to incorporate it in the right way,

in the way that maintains their own mission of measuring all of the U.S. and not just some of it. You call this private data, and look, we've done a thing on high-frequency data and private data. We've done that in years past. You call it shiny and new and frequent and voluminous. You know, to be only a little bit glib here, sounds good to me, shiny and new and frequent of voluminous. Well, I think this might be a little insider stats baseball. Oh, go ahead. You know, the thing about having more data about a single point is that you don't really get more precise after so long.

And this is something that a lot of people have pointed out with private sector data is that it basically over indexes on the points that they have with more frequency, but you lose parts of the board. So I get a really accurate, accurate picture of one square, but I lose the other half of the board. So these task forces that Chairman Warsh has picked. Obviously, you know, he picked them and the thumb is somewhat on the scale. Do you suppose there's a chance this data task force comes back and says, you know what? Chairman Warsh, we'd be well advised to do a little public-private thing here. I mean, that is what I am hoping. I think if they ask for opinion from people who aren't selling this data, that people would say, almost every economist would say, what are you doing? You need to revive the Census Bureau. You need to invest in the BLS. And so I think the broader, opinion of the research community and the statistical community would not be divided in any way. So the hope is that they just talk to the right people and take it in broad view. Yeah. Catherine Ann Edwards, she is a labor economist by training. She also writes for Bloomberg and does a podcast too. It's called The Optimist Economy. Thanks very much for your time, Catherine.

Good to hear you. Cheers. Wall Street on this Thursday, you know, the data says that traders are feeling okay about Chairman Warsh. Today, we'll have the details when we do the numbers. There's a lot of energy news of late, the war, of course, and data centers and how much electricity the U.S. economy is going to need because of them. Come with me now into the future, though, when rich countries aren't going to be driving global energy demand. That demand is going to be coming from water now emerging economies, places like India and Brazil and Nigeria. And a new report by S&B Global Energy points out that those countries are going to need both fossil fuels and renewables to power that growth. as Marketplace's Elizabeth Trowball reports.

By 2060, emerging economies could increase global energy demand by over 60%, which is like adding another China to world consumption. This demand growth is going to be met with a multiplicity of different energies. Dan Yergan is with S&B Global. Renewables will be an important part of it. You're going to see perhaps more coal now. And oil and gas will continue to be part of the demand picture for longer than many people think. Take India, where Atul Aria with S&P Global Energy says both the economy and energy demand are growing rapidly. Most of that energy supply is coming from hydrocarbons.

They have a very large renewable power program, but transportation needs are all being met by oil. All of this makes it harder to meet climate goals, like keeping the rise in average global temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius. The world can still try to achieve the 2 degree, but that's also becoming extremely. challenging, and it's because the world needs energy in these emerging markets. Growing energy demand is a good thing in less advanced economies, says Katie Off with the Energy for Growth Hub, a global think tank. It's being driven by economic development, rising incomes, job creation. Right now, the average Liberian consumes less electricity in a year than my refrigerator does. So the scale of energy poverty is far worse.

than I imagine most Americans would ever think about. She says emerging economies can't wait on renewables getting cheaper to grow their energy systems. But richer countries can help them develop their energy mix to be cleaner. I'm Elizabeth Troval for Marketplace. I mentioned yesterday, I think that retail sales were up in August, 1.2%. That was. I'm pretty sure I said this, a little surprising given the consumers aren't feeling all that great about this economy. But as is often the case with economic data, what you learn about one industry tells you a little something about another.

Building material stores, it turns out, had a week month, which, as Marketplaces Caitlin Tan reports, does give us a peek into the demand for home improvement. Rachel Drew has some old dying trees. She's keeping an eye on at her home in Massachusetts. You know, they create a potential risk if they were to come. come down in a storm and to hit our house or hit our cars in the driveway. But she's been putting off cutting them down because the labor, the chainsaw, the hydraulic tree jacks, they're really expensive right now. In her work with Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, Drew is seeing consumers doing the same, holding off on home projects that aren't dire. Like renovate your kitchen and redo your cabinetry and your countertops.

If you're not renovating, you don't need supplies, which Morning Stars, James, Amy Kat says isn't great news for building material stores. You look back over the last handful of quarters across names like Lowe's or Home Depot, they've really struggled to stimulate transaction growth. Of course, there are projects you just can't put off. If your refrigerator fails, if your toilet breaks, if you have some sort of like water heater issue. Those you got to fix. But to really get more people into hardware stores or lumbergobes,

Yards, you need home sales, says Zach Fritz with Sage Policy Group. If you're preparing to sell your house, you repaint, you replace appliances, you do, you know, little tic-y-tac repairs. But if you aren't moving, you just live with that kind of stuff. And existing home sales are down. Of course, you know, the underlying factor there is just mortgage rates. Everything really ties back to that. And as we know all too well, mortgage rates just keep climbing.

I'm Caitlin Tan for Marketplace. Here's a data point relevant to this program's interests. Business, the National Student Clearinghouse, says, is the most popular college major. Also popular at the high school level, personal finance. 30 states now require a standalone course in it to graduate. The college board, it of the SAT in Advanced Placement Courses, has taken notice. There is a new course, AP Business, with personal. personal finance. Marketplaces Stephanie Hughes went to check it out.

Victoria Beasley is setting up a makeshift commodities market. Everybody grab a golden ticket. If you are a seller, also pick up a bundle of apples. We're at Digital Harbor High School in Baltimore. Beasley, who's constantly in motion, is teaching AP business with personal finance. The apples are pictures printed on paper. Each student picks up a ticket that says whether they're a buyer or a seller. It also lists a price. For sellers, it's the minimum they can sell their apples for. For buyers, it's the max they're willing to pay.

You all have to find the person that you want to make a deal with. One seller, Bren Carter, negotiates with his classmate. For the apples, I have, right, is $16. They're more flavorful. They're more juicy. Carter, who's wearing a shirt that says, rise and grind, finds a buyer. You have me convinced. I love apples.

The goal here is to introduce students to different kinds of markets. In this class, they'll also learn about accounting, marketing, how to put together a household budget. These students are into it, and like future business leaders, they seem to be constantly shaking hands with each other. One of them is 12th grader Christopher Borno. My dad really wants me to learn how to start my own business because he feels one day you should learn how to start your own business and not work under people. Students who take the class and do well on the AP exam at the end could receive college credit for an intro-level business course. That's attractive to 12th grader Wendy Berrios Castanata. I want to make my own offer from at some point, so I hope to take some of this knowledge into consideration when I have my own offer.

That interest in business is one reason the college board is offering this new class, which is expected to be taught in thousands of schools this year. Jennifer Mulhern, vice president of AP program access for the college board, says by teaching business, together with personal finance, students will learn about financial concepts from two different angles. So you think about how does a business invest? And then you think about your personal savings. And we thought that would be a rich way for students to learn. But some say business and personal finance are two different subjects that don't necessarily fit together in one high school course. Doing both of those at the same exact time is actually a lot, like a huge undertaking.

Carly Urban's an economics professor at Montana State. Last year, she released a working paper that found high schoolers who took a standalone course in personal finance were better with their money. They're just less likely to do things wrong. So they're 4% less likely to have a subprime credit score. And they also just feel better about keeping up with their day-to-day, month-to-month expenses. But when personal finance was embedded in another subject, like math or economics, students didn't get those benefits. There's something about embedding that makes students not as engaged in it. The AP business with personal finance course is brand new, so it wasn't part of that research.

And the college boards, Jennifer Mulhern, says the AP exam is a big motivating factor for students. They spend a lot of time studying for it, which she says leads to deeper learning. Also, she points out the courses build around projects, like acting as a household financial advisor. And we've seen that learning is so strong when students are really asked to apply it. At Digital Harbor, Victoria Bees. Easley says about half the kids in her AP business class have already taken her standalone personal finance course. Our kids need both. We focus a lot on math and English. We need to focus on, do you have a bank account? One of her students, 12th grader Colell Ross, says he knows adults who don't understand their finances.

And I feel like if they would have learned this in high school, they would have used this. I feel like it wouldn't be as much people not financially stable. Ross says once you start learning about money, it's easy to get hooked. In Baltimore, I'm Stephanie Hughes for Marketplace. Coming up, I get to introduce s'm more to people from Iran or Italy or India. A key cultural export, am I right? First, though, let's do the numbers. Now, industrials rebound at 316 points on the day, 610% finished at 51,778.

declined 439 points, 1.7%, 26,418. The S&P 500 added 85 points, 1 and a 10th percent, 76 and 37. Elizabeth Trowball was talking about growth in the global energy markets. It's going to need a mix of fossils and renewables. On the oil side of things, ConocoPhillips gained a half percent. Occidental petroleum did one-tenth of one percent on the day. The sun shined on solar panel maker first solar, added five and three-tenths percent on the day. Bonds up yield down the 10-year T-note backed off just a little bit.

4.93%. You're listening to Marketplace. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Risdahl. All of those stories you've heard about private equity groups and big corporate buyers buying up single-family homes. Well, here's a twist. They're buying up mobile home parks, too, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars worth.

One park in Colorado is trying to avoid that fate, as Lee Patterson from KUNC explains. residents of Sunset Park, a community of 164 double-wide homes in Loveland, Colorado, have a multimillion dollar problem. We've talked to different lenders, and the big thing seems to be priced at $44.5 million. That's what the 24-acre park is listed for. Tim Fritch and his neighbors were notified of the sale in April. He says, so far, lenders are hesitant to move forward. So that's the issue.

That's a lot of money for residents to come up with. Since then, a committee has been working towards an offer. They gathered their neighbor's signatures. The state requires a majority of residents to sign on. And they're trying to cobble together alone. Tonight, they're meeting at Fritch's House. My goal is to get us in here to be resident-owned so we control everything that goes on. Sitting in the living room, many are taking notes as Fritch gives an update on lenders and outreach to government officials.

It's somewhat of a pep talk about the financing process. We are still in the ballpark. We haven't hit a home run, but we haven't hit three outs either, so we're still negotiating. Generally, mobile home residents can own their homes, but not the land underneath them. The hope here is for Sunset to change that by becoming a resident-owned community. Colorado law gives mobile home park residents, 120 days to make an offer when their property is put up for sale. Most people who live here are seniors or retirees, like Ben McGuire.

We have been here 20 years, and our concern is, is if a developer takes this over, we will lose our house. McGuire's worried a developer could buy the land and turn it into something else. The park's owner, Legacy Communities LLC, didn't respond to questions about Sunset's future. I'm 78 years old. I work. I have to. Resident Bonnie Berry attended the meeting still in her work uniform. She says she recently went back to work as a medical courier in order to afford her rent, the nearly $1,200 monthly fee for the land under her home.

I should be retired by now, but I can't. She feels sure rent would increase under a new owner. There is some evidence to support this. Kelly Giroux is a professor of land economics at the University of New Hampshire. The biggest striking thing is the monthly fees. Her research has found that fees or rent tend to be lower at resident-owned communities versus investor-owned. Jereau has also heard of growing pains when she surveyed residents about what happens when their neighbors become property managers. There can be drama.

It's just like any association, you think of a neighborhood association or a condominium association, you're going to have different personalities. Tim Fritch says this group. group of residents at Sunset Park is willing to risk the downsides of ownership. I mean, our concern is we want to stay here. We don't want to go anywhere. Everybody is too old to go anywhere. Since the meeting, the committee has gotten some good news. The state is considering a complaint that residents filed over what they see as an

inflated listing price, which stops the 120-day countdown clock and gives residents more time to raise funds. In Lovellon, Colorado, I'm Lee, Patterson for Marketplace. In July, which is the most recent month for which we have data, travel spending in the United States reached $122 billion for the calendar year. That is up 4.3% from the same time a year ago. That's according to the U.S. Travel Association, by the way. However, comma, as is so often the case, high dollar figures do not tell the whole story.

Visitors from abroad are down 7% year-on-year, not great for businesses with international clientele. Here's today's installment of our series, My Economy. My name is Chris Sorby. I'm the owner of Hummer Hill Vacation Rental, located in Glendale, Utah. So my father originally moved to the area when he became a schoolteacher back in 1973,

and he built the home himself. But in retirement, he wanted a small business that could kind of keep him busy and keep him engaged, and he eventually chose to remodel his home that he had built and turn it into a vacation rental that we list on Airbnb. In 2015, I was between work and he was looking to set up this project at that time, and he and I agreed to go into business together. We did a massive remodel on the interior of the house, and then when my father passed away two years ago, I took over the business, and so now I'm the

sole owner and caretaker of Hummer Hill. We're going on. eight years in business and 10 years that the project's been underway. Two years ago, we were charging about 229 a night. With traffic coming down, we've had to cut our rates. I think we're at 179 or 189 a night now. We've seen the customer flow change most recently with fewer foreign visitors to the area. We've hosted people from Costa Rica, from the UK, groups from China, Korea, a lot of Canadians, where our business used to be about 50% foreign visitors and 50% Americans. I think over the past two years, I've only had one group from Canada last year and then one group from India this year. Glendale is a town of about 350, 400 people. We're very

proud of our little town, small though it may be. We know our... our neighbors. We look out for our neighbors and we really love and enjoy sharing that kind of lifestyle with guests when they come into the area. I've literally sat down with guests from around the world and we sit out by the campfire and make s'mores and I get to introduce s'mores to people from Iran or Italy or India. And it's just a really great thing that we can recognize this shared humanity we have, even in this little tiny town in southern Utah, that we're all kind of want the same thing. We want things that are better for our family and opportunity for growth, and in this

case, a beautiful place to go on vacation. Chris Sorby, Hummer Hill Vacation Rental, if you're looking to get away. Glendale, Utah is where they are. Tell you what, wherever you are, whatever you do, I know I say this all the time, but it's true. It is your stories that make this economy go round. So share them with us, would you? Marketplace.

slash my economy. This final note on the way out today in which commodities strategist at J.P. Morgan joined the club. For the first time since the start of the Iran conflict, they wrote this morning, we do not have a baseline view. We simply don't know how to model the end game. They then go on. We assume there were economic red lines the U.S. administration would be unwilling to cross. Six months later, many of those lines have been crossed, yet the exit strategy is less clear not more.

So there you go. Our daily production team includes Andy Corbyn, Mika Ellison, Maria Holland Horst, Sarah Leeson, Sean McKenry, and Sophia Taranzeo. Will Story is the supervising senior producer. And I'm Kai Rizzdahl. We will see you tomorrow, everybody.

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