Home Depot and Lowe’s both posted positive comparable sales in their latest quarters, but the results do not look like a broad return of big-ticket home spending. Instead, they show a market split between work that still needs to get done and larger discretionary projects that many homeowners can keep postponing.
Home Depot reported fiscal second-quarter sales of $47.9 billion, up 5.7% from a year earlier, with comparable sales up 1.7% and U.S. comparable sales up 1.3%, according to the company’s Aug. 18 earnings release. Lowe’s followed with $25.96 billion in quarterly sales and a 0.2% comparable-sales increase. Lowe’s total sales were lifted by acquisitions, while its underlying retail performance remained much closer to flat.
The contrast is important for the appliance business. Housing turnover remains weak, removing a traditional trigger for kitchen upgrades and other major projects. Yet households have not stopped spending on their homes. They are concentrating more of that spending on repairs, maintenance, smaller projects and purchases that are harder to defer.
Positive Comps Hide a Split Market
Home Depot’s quarter offers the clearest evidence that “frozen” is too broad a description for home-improvement demand. Comparable transactions fell 1.0%, while comparable average ticket rose 2.8%. Transactions above $1,000 increased 2.4%, according to the company’s earnings-call discussion. That is not the profile of a consumer who has stopped buying expensive home products altogether.
But the composition of demand matters more than the $1,000 threshold alone. Home Depot said customers continued to engage in smaller projects, and independent reporting from Reuters described repair and maintenance as a source of resilience while high mortgage and interest rates continued to weigh on major renovations. Pro sales again outperformed DIY.
Lowe’s showed an even sharper divide. Its comparable sales rose just 0.2%, supported by Pro and home-services sales and a 15.7% increase in online sales, while discretionary DIY spending remained under pressure. The company cut its full-year outlook to about $92 billion in sales and flat comparable sales, down from its previous expectation of $92 billion to $94 billion and comps ranging from flat to up 2%.
More Read
“Sustained growth in Pro, Online and Home Services led to our fifth consecutive quarter of positive comp sales, despite pressure in discretionary DIY spending,” Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison said in the company’s quarterly announcement, as reported by Reuters.
Housing Turnover Is a Brake, Not an Off Switch
The retailers’ results support the idea that low housing turnover is suppressing demand, but they do not support a literal reading of a “frozen” market. Existing-home sales fell 1.7% in July, while the median existing-home price rose 2% from a year earlier to $434,100, according to housing data cited by the Associated Press. Fewer moves mean fewer move-in renovations and fewer occasions to replace multiple appliances as part of a kitchen overhaul.
At the same time, the housing stock keeps aging and products still fail. A refrigerator, range or water heater replacement can be a four-figure purchase without being part of a discretionary remodel. That helps explain why big-ticket transaction counts can improve even while executives continue to describe financing-heavy renovation demand as constrained.
The distinction also fits Lowe’s recent appliance performance. In the first quarter, the retailer identified appliances among its areas of strength even as it said DIY demand remained pressured. Lowe’s has also emphasized rapid delivery and installation of major appliances, positioning the category to capture urgent replacement demand that is less dependent on a home sale or a consumer’s willingness to finance an entire renovation.
For appliance manufacturers and dealers, that points to a market where replacement cycles, availability, delivery speed and promotional value may matter more than a broad housing rebound. A recovery in turnover would add another demand catalyst, but Q2 suggests the category does not have to wait for that recovery to generate sales.
Pro Demand Is Carrying More of the Load
Both chains are leaning harder on professional customers as DIY shoppers remain cautious. Home Depot’s Pro business posted positive comparable sales and outperformed DIY in Q2. Lowe’s said Pro, online and home services were the engines behind its positive comp, extending a pattern visible earlier in the year.
That mix can keep home-improvement revenue moving even when individual homeowners delay a full kitchen or bath remodel. Contractors still handle repair work, property maintenance and smaller renovations, and both retailers have invested heavily in delivery, assortment and services aimed at capturing more of that spending.
The divergence also helps explain why Home Depot’s quarter looked stronger. Home Depot has long had greater Pro exposure, while Lowe’s is still expanding its professional business, including through acquisitions. Lowe’s remains more exposed to the discretionary DIY customer, making its reduced outlook a useful warning against treating Home Depot’s 1.7% comp gain as evidence of a broad consumer rebound.
Tariff Refunds Complicate the Profit Picture
Tariffs added another wrinkle to both reports. Home Depot received $730 million in refunds tied to duties collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The company said $685 million reduced cost of goods sold in the quarter, while $45 million remained in inventory. Home Depot’s guidance assumes tariff refunds will partially offset unplanned fuel, energy and other product input costs.
CFO Richard McPhail said on the earnings call that the refunds helped the retailer offset higher costs and maintain value rather than simply flowing through as an isolated windfall. That matters when reading the quarter’s margin and earnings improvement: the sales signal and the profit signal are not identical.
Lowe’s also benefited from tariff refunds. Reuters reported that the refunds added 11 cents to quarterly earnings per share. For appliance and home-improvement suppliers, the accounting benefit does not erase the underlying cost problem; it changes how much of the pressure retailers need to absorb, offset elsewhere or pass along through pricing.
What Q2 Says About Home Spending
Taken together, the two quarters argue for a narrower description than “frozen.” Housing turnover is weak and large discretionary renovations remain constrained, especially among DIY households. But repair, maintenance, Pro work, home services and some big-ticket purchases are still moving.
That is also consistent with the longer remodeling outlook. As Appliance News reported earlier this month, Harvard’s Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity points to slower growth rather than a collapse in renovation spending through mid-2027.
For the appliance channel, the practical divide is between purchases tied to a broad discretionary renovation and purchases triggered by need. Q2 did not show a return to easy, housing-led growth. It showed that consumers and contractors are still spending—just with a higher bar for which projects get approved.
