Here’s a number to get things started: 31. As in, 31 years since the housing market was this frozen. The logjam is hardly news anymore, and since the post-Covid crash, we’ve all become accustomed to hearing dire real estate stats. But it’s worth taking a moment to remember that the biggest single driver of business in the design industry—homes changing hands—remains at historically weak levels.

That alone would make this a truly wild time—to say nothing of the tariff roller coaster and the sudden ubiquity of AI. To take stock of the moment, Business of Home zoomed in on the stats, dollar signs and figures that matter most. They paint a picture of a remarkably resilient industry, one that pushes ahead despite constant challenges and change.

100%

The yearly growth rate in AI usage among designers
In 2023, a 1stDibs survey found that a mere 9 percent of designers were using AI tools in their firms. In 2024, it was 16 percent. Last year, 29 percent. If these numbers sound modest, pay attention to the rate of change: It’s roughly doubling every 12 months, suggesting that by 2027 almost all designers will be using AI.

$1,000,000

How much RH’s first stand-alone design studio brings in every month
RH CEO Gary Friedman is fond of saying he fields the biggest residential interior design firm in the world, but that claim had mostly been based on the scale of the company’s in-store design teams. Then in 2024, the company opened its first design-only location in Palm Desert, California. RH doesn’t break out dollars and cents for the outpost, but on a recent earnings call, Friedman said it brings in $1 million in revenue monthly against $200,000 annual rent—and that the company is looking to open more RH Interior Design locations. “You can do the math,” he quipped.

50%

The tariff rate on imported Indian goods
At the kickoff of Trump’s second term, there was much speculation that the real trade adversary was China, and that global tariffs were just talk. They weren’t. A year later, and ironically China has lower tariffs on most goods than a half dozen other countries, including Laos, Brazil, Cambodia and—especially notable for the design industry—India. The country, an enormous producer of rugs, textiles and decor, has been hit hard by Trump’s trade policy, with U.S. exports dropping off precipitously. Meanwhile, American importers of Indian goods have been forced to raise their prices or look elsewhere.

4,100

Furniture manufacturing jobs lost since ‘Liberation Day’
One of the goals of Trump’s tariff policy has been to bolster domestic manufacturing across a wide swath of industries. Nine months into the rollout, and it’s hard to see much evidence of it in furniture—according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry has lost jobs since April (textile mill employment has also decreased). Proponents of the president’s trade policy say it will take time. But at the moment, tariffs have done little to arrest the slow decline of American furniture manufacturing, which has shed roughly 50,000 jobs over the past decade.

12

Homes rebuilt in Los Angeles since the fires
Actually, it’s less than 12. Local reporting suggests that “fewer than a dozen” homes—between seven and 10—have finished construction since the Palisades and Altadena fires destroyed more than 13,000 last January. That number will certainly go up this year, but a combination of permit red tape and insurance payout delays have slowed L.A.’s recovery to a crawl.

2

Design centers owned by Charles Cohen
Cohen was once the undisputed landlord king of the design industry, controlling four key design centers across the country. Fallout from a legal dispute saw him lose the Design Center of the Americas in 2024, while last year he gave up the Decorative Center Houston after failing to make a deal with the holder of the mortgage. Now only the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles and the Decoration & Design Building in New York remain under his control.

10

$100 million-plus real estate deals in 2025
That’s up from seven such deals in 2024, and only five in 2023. America’s housing market is increasingly playing out in split screen: While the mass middle is frozen solid, luxury homes continue to turn over, fetching increasingly wild prices. The resilience of the high end has been a welcome bright spot for designers and brands who already cater to the 1 percent, and has kicked off a mad dash among everyone else to level up their clientele.

$6,500,000

The starting bid for Food52, Schoolhouse and Dansk
Since being acquired by TCG in 2019, the content-meets-commerce site spent tens of millions to acquire Portland-based home brand Schoolhouse and heritage tableware makers Dansk. The lofty goal was to build a digital-first competitor to the likes of Williams-Sonoma, and at its peak, Food52 was valued at $300 million. But the post-Covid crash, management turnover, an expensive Brooklyn headquarters, and an embezzlement scandal all took their toll on the company, which filed for bankruptcy late last year. The stalking horse bidder, America’s Test Kitchen, is offering a tiny fraction of what the combined companies were once worth.