Young people have a fairly pessimistic view of the current housing market. According to LendingTree, only 7% of potential Gen Z and millennial homebuyers believe they are likely to purchase a home within the next year, while 60% anticipate it will take at least three years. Furthermore, 9% don’t think they will ever be able to become homeowners.
When these respondents are asked about the reasons why they cannot currently get a home, around a quarter say that housing prices are too high. It’s true that house prices are currently incredibly high; per Vox, “home prices have doubled in the last decade, with much of that growth happening in just the last four years. By one measure, housing affordability has fallen to its lowest level since the 1980s.”
There are numerous reasons for this, including inflation, corporate greed, interest rates, and more. However, one little-examined reason for these high prices is the ballooning cost of home maintenance.
In December 2023, Newsweek reported that the cost of home maintenance had doubled in the past year.
Although some of these costs can be attributed to pandemic-related sourcing issues, one user on TikTok has another theory about why something as simple as flooring can suddenly lead to high costs.
Why is flooring so expensive?
In a video with over 60,000 views, TikTok user Tony Garcia (@tony_arcanum), who works at LL Flooring (formerly known as Lumber Liquidators), explains how he believes flooring manufacturers can trick homeowners into buying new floors.
Standing in a location that claims to be going out of business (LL Flooring announced last week that it had avoided bankruptcy after striking a deal with a private equity firm), Garcia shares some “not so fun facts” about the flooring industry.
According to Garcia, many of his clients are landlords and people who are already homeowners. Occasionally, these people will need to replace their floors, which causes issues.
“Vinyl and laminate get updated every two or three years, maybe even faster if they can make it happen, to force people to buy an entirely new floor if they don’t have a single box lying around to repair something,” he explains. “So if you have a busted pipe in your kitchen or something, and you got a leak, and you have three planks that are busted—sorry, you have to buy $1,000 of new floor, $5,000 of new floor, and you got to get someone to install it. And that’s on purpose.”
In short, he says that the locking mechanisms used to connect vinyl and laminate flooring can be changed by the manufacturer, even if the floor itself stays the same. This means that one can install a floor, require a repair ten years later, then be completely unable to find the flooring with the correct locking mechanism to replace it.
“I tell every single person that comes in here to buy an extra box or two, and they always give me the face, like, ‘Do I really need it?’” he says. “Yes. Yes, you need it. Right. Because 10 years from now, you’re gonna spend weeks, months, forever trying to find that discontinued floor that they discontinued on purpose to make you buy more.”
Do flooring companies really change their locking mechanisms?
While the specific claims made by the TikToker could not be verified, there are plenty of cases around the internet of homeowners complaining about manufacturers changing the ways in which their flooring is connected.
For example, this user stated that their flooring company changed the locking mechanism of their flooring “ever so slightly,” resulting in a floor that does not properly lock together. When the user began to search for the old type of flooring, he was told that it was no longer being carried.
Whether this is due to an intentional strategy on the part of manufacturers or another, unstated reason, however, could not be determined.
@tony_arcanum They do not care about you, and they certainly do not care about their employees. #flooring #corporations #capitalismsucks #vinyl #laminate #fyp #foryou #goingoutofbusiness #llflooring ♬ origineel geluid – no sound
Commenters share their stories
In the comments section, some users shared similar tales of flooring confusion.
“Ugh this happened to me and not even one year later they had discontinued our floors,” wrote a user.
“This!!!!! I have two rooms downstairs that are carpet and to make them the laminate I would have to get all new floors downstairs because the flooring doesn’t exist anymore. Can’t buy a single box,” added another.
“that’s so true,” echoed a third. “I did my common rooms first and a year later I did the bedrooms and I got the same vinyl tiles and the connecting sides color are different. I got extra boxes saved just in case.”
We’ve reached out to LL Flooring via email and Garcia via Instagram DM and TikTok comment.
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