Key Furniture Analyst Looks to Disaster-Driven Recovery

Noted industry advisor Jerry Epperson says wildfires in California and big storms in the Southeast could result in better business.

In his latest Mann Armistead Epperson Furnishings Digest Newsletter, Epperson, who has been working with the industry for more than five decades – the past 39 with the Richmond, VA-based investment banking firm – lamented the overall weakness in the furniture sector. “The home furnishings industry is entering its third year of ongoing weak consumer interest suffering from extreme complacency and lack of enthusiasm.”

But as tragic as they were, recent manmade and natural disasters have the potential to drive increased business for both furniture companies and home builders in the impacted areas. “Historically speaking, disasters that impact residential housing have a long record of accelerating housing recoveries through insurance. Could the disasters and our inventory excesses that continue to exist factor into our having a more rapid housing recovery in 2025?

“Already, for-sale housing inventories are up 14 percent as of now, (year vs. year) and the money is ready to finance a multi-year recovery in home sales,” Epperson said.

He believes furniture companies need to do a better job in promoting sales and improving from the past several years. “Too many of our stores and online retailers are looking at 2025 as being more of the same! We are not seeing the new product introductions that we need to spur consumer attention and interest this coming Spring.”

He said the industry is still suffering from “extreme inventory imbalances” and facing a myriad of problems from high shipping rates to the threat of tariffs to still-too-high inflation to mortgage rates that remain stubbornly unaffected by cuts in Federal Reserve lending rates. He did see some positive signs from the winter show circuit for furniture and home furnishings, where healthy attendance levels combined with wholesale prices remaining steady offered some encouragement for the industry.

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