Home Repair Costs Up 76% in a Decade as Energy Bills Climb

Repair costs rise as energy bills rise

American homeowners are paying more for upkeep and more for utilities at the same time. A new LendingTree analysis of Census Bureau housing data puts the median home improvement project at $2,113 in 2025, up 76.1% from $1,200 in 2015.27 The research also finds that routine maintenance on an owner-occupied home now runs about $1,433 a year.27 Utility bills are climbing too. Residential electricity prices are about 40% higher than they were in early 2020.16 A national group of energy-assistance officials expects the typical household's winter heating bill to rise 8.7% this season.10

When these numbers are reported separately, each one looks like a normal story about inflation. Taken together, they show a bigger shift: the ongoing cost of owning a home is pulling away from the mortgage payment. Homeowners who refinanced into cheap loans years ago may have a fixed housing payment, but that is no longer most of what they spend to keep the house running.

What the LendingTree data shows

The study draws on the Census Bureau's 2023 American Housing Survey, with earlier survey years used for the historical comparison. Dollar figures were converted to 2025 terms using the Consumer Price Index.27 By LendingTree's account, the biggest jump came between 2021 and 2023, when the median project cost rose 22.2%.27

Home improvement is widespread. About 51.6 million of the country's 86.9 million owner-occupied homes had some work done during the survey's two-year window. That added up to roughly 139.9 million projects, or about 2.7 per improved home.22 Most of that work is routine rather than major remodeling. The most common category was adding or replacing water heaters, dishwashers and garbage disposals, at 11.7% of projects with a median cost of $845. HVAC installation or replacement came second at 9.1%.27

The age of a house matters a lot. Homes built before 1940 cost an estimated $1,706 a year to maintain. Homes built in 2022–2023 averaged just $173.23 Hiring help is the other big variable. Professionals handled 64.1% of projects, and the median professional job cost $4,103, compared with $845 for do-it-yourself work.27

Most homeowners still pay out of savings. Cash covered 75.7% of projects, credit cards 6.3% and insurance settlements 3.9%.24 Bigger jobs were paid for differently: the median project funded with a home equity loan cost $7,924, and the median insurance-funded project cost $9,963.27

Where the coverage agrees, and where it slips

The main outlets that covered the study, including USA Today and IBTimes, accurately report the 76.1% increase, the $2,113 median and the professional-versus-DIY gap.2224 They also give the same explanation, quoting LendingTree analyst Matt Schulz: labor and building materials cost more, and homeowners who locked in mortgage rates near 3% are unwilling to move and take on loans near 7%.2422

Some coverage got the numbers wrong. One outlet said households spend "between $1,200 and $2,113" on repairs and described $1,706 as the average maintenance cost for a home.25 In fact, $1,200 and $2,113 are two medians ten years apart, and $1,706 applies only to homes built before 1940.27 Readers comparing their own costs should use $1,433 as the overall maintenance average.

The headline figure also needs context that most reports leave out. LendingTree's own write-up says the higher median may partly reflect homeowners taking on "larger and more complicated projects" because they are staying put instead of moving.27 So the 76% figure measures how much people spend per project, not how much the same job costs today. Other measures point the same way but show a smaller increase. The Verisk Remodel Index has repair costs up more than 61% since early 2015, and up 3.97% year over year in the first quarter of 2025, well ahead of general inflation.30 Angi's 2025 spending report found the average household spent $2,041 on maintenance and $1,143 on emergency repairs.30 The conclusion holds across these measures: upkeep is getting more expensive faster than prices overall, even if 76% somewhat overstates the increase for any one repair.

Electricity: one of the fastest-rising household bills

The study's top two project categories, water heaters and HVAC systems, are heating and cooling equipment. That links repair costs directly to energy bills, and electricity prices have risen steadily. Based on Energy Information Administration data, the average residential price reached 18.22 cents per kilowatt-hour from January to July 2026. That is up from 13.06 cents in the same months of 2020, and 8.6% higher even after adjusting for inflation.16 The average monthly electric bill was about $159.89, roughly $44.59 more than in 2020.16

The past year has been especially steep. Residential prices rose 7.1% year over year in early 2026, and Maryland's rose 22.8%.16 Prices increased in 47 states and D.C. Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts were the exceptions, where prices fell.12 In the states mostly served by the PJM grid, the median one-year increase was 12.8%, nearly double the 6.6% median elsewhere.16 The PJM grid stretches from New Jersey to Ohio and has seen capacity costs jump with data-center demand. The EIA's October outlook expects the national average to go from 17.3 cents in 2025 to 18.2 cents in 2026 and 18.7 cents in 2027. It also expects wholesale power prices to average about 11% higher this year.20

Forecasts differ on what comes next. The EIA's September outlook projected 18.6 cents for 2027, so the forecast was revised up a month later.1620 The trend is still clearly upward. The disagreement is about how fast prices will rise, not whether they will.

Winter heating: forecasts disagree on the average, agree on oil

Heating forecasts disagree more. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) projects average household heating spending of $1,030 this winter, up $82. It expects electric heating costs to rise 9.0%, natural gas 5.8%, propane 8.7% and heating oil 31.3%.104 NEADA also says heating costs have risen 23.9% since the winter of 2021–22.5

The EIA's October 6 Winter Fuels Outlook is more mixed. It expects natural gas households to pay about $640, down 9%. It puts propane at $1,246, down 3%, and electric heat at $1,196, up 4%.3 The two forecasts reach different answers on gas because they use different methods.3

Both agree that heating oil is the biggest problem. The EIA expects oil-heated homes to spend about $2,115, up 21%.3 In late September, NEADA raised its oil estimate to about a 50% increase, citing the effect of the wars in Iran and Ukraine on petroleum markets. Under that estimate, the average oil-heated home would go from roughly $1,749 last winter to $2,627.9 NEADA says about 82% of the country's oil-heated homes are in the Northeast, so that region will take most of the hit.9 Expectations of a mild El Niño winter are holding the national forecasts down somewhat. A cold snap would push bills higher than any of these projections.13

Low-income households are hit hardest. NEADA estimates that electricity and gas took about 9.9% of income for the poorest fifth of households in 2025, compared with 1.25% for the wealthiest fifth.3

Why these costs add up

Rising repair bills and rising energy bills are often covered as separate stories, but for homeowners they make each other worse. Older homes cost the most to maintain, as the LendingTree data shows.27 It is reasonable to expect that many of those homes also have older furnaces, water heaters and wiring, which makes them more exposed to higher energy prices. When higher electricity rates arrive alongside a failing furnace or water heater, a homeowner faces a large one-time replacement bill plus higher monthly costs to run the house.

The mortgage lock-in effect makes this more likely. Owners who stay put to keep a low interest rate avoid a bigger mortgage, but their houses keep getting older. Schulz expects that lock-in to persist for some time.24 Cash is still the main way people pay for repairs, which means many households are drawing down savings to cover a fast-rising cost.24

The practical advice is simple, but most household budgets don't follow it yet. A common guideline from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies is that maintenance costs about 1% to 2% of a home's value each year.26 With repair costs, electricity and heating oil all rising faster than general inflation, homeowners should budget for upkeep and utilities as seriously as they budget for the mortgage.