Conventional wisdom in the bedding industry holds that growth in the housing market logically translates to growth in the mattress market.
But the reality, a leading mattress analyst says, is more complicated.
Keith Hughes, an analyst with Truist Securities who has closely followed the mattress industry for decades, says there is a correlation between new home starts, spending on home remodeling, and mattress sales. But he quickly adds that a variety of factors can impact mattress purchases.
“The current downturn in home remodeling is much worse than the downturn in new home construction, and that is an unusual situation from a historical perspective,” Hughes told Bedding News Now. “I think that this is one of the reasons why mattress sales have been so bad in recent years. Another reason is that lower-income consumers are facing significant economic pressures.”
Looking at overall trends in the mattress and housing markets, Hughes sees similarities.
He estimates that when final figures on 2025 mattress performance are in, the domestic market will be down 25% in dollars from its 2021 peak, with units being down closer to 30%. Bedding imports will be down 20% from their 2020 peak, he believes.
He notes these key housing metrics:
- Actual (non-seasonally adjusted) housing starts have fallen about 19% since 2021.
- Existing home sales are down about 34% since 2021, according to the National Association of Realtors.
- The Remodeling Market Index, as reported by the National Association of Home Builders, was down 31% from 2021 to the third quarter of 2025.
“There is clearly a correlation between new home starts, remodel spending and mattress sales,” Hughes says. “Over time, they are very directionally similar.”
But Hughes adds an important caveat, noting that those markets do not all move together. “The rates that these metrics move down or up can start to vary from cycle to cycle,” he says.
He also offers a nuanced view of the role that housing starts and sales play in influencing mattress sales. “I have often thought mattress sales have the least to do with home rotation — new or existing,” he says.
He cites three reasons for that view. “First, homebuilders themselves do not purchase mattresses. Second, many consumers do take their mattresses with them when they move. Third, the renovation market is somewhat limited. There are 100 million to 120 million homes in the country, and existing home sales were just over 4 million last year. You are only rotating a small portion of existing stock in any given year.”
His conclusion: “It is hard to really say exactly how much mattress buying is driven by housing sales. It clearly means less for mattresses than for categories that sell to new builders. My opinion is that more of the mattress purchasing is done by consumers who are not moving.”
But housing growth does provide some growth, over time, for the mattress industry, he adds. And any mattress growth from a housing pick-up would be welcome for an industry that has been mired in a prolonged downturn, Hughes says.
