How a pandemic spending spree and a Wall Street gamble led to At Home’s collapse

By Bryn Feller, managing director of commercial investment sales

If you redecorated your living room during the pandemic, you weren’t alone. With people stuck indoors, stimulus checks in hand, and nowhere to go, Americans spent billions sprucing up their homes. Stores like At Home, a giant home décor chain, saw sales soar. In fact, the company’s revenue jumped by more than 50% between 2019 and 2021, reaching nearly $2 billion at the height of the boom.

But now, just a few years later, At Home has filed for bankruptcy.

What happened?

The short answer: a combination of pandemic-fueled overconfidence, big money bets from Wall Street, and an unforgiving economic hangover.

In 2021, right as Americans were still snapping up throw pillows and patio sets, a private equity firm bought At Home for nearly $3 billion. The idea? Ride the home goods wave and cash in. But that wave quickly crashed.

As lockdowns ended, so did the spending spree. People went back to restaurants, vacations, and work and stopped buying as much stuff for their homes. At the same time, the cost of doing business shot up. Interest rates rose fast, making it harder for companies to manage debt. And tariffs on goods from overseas, especially from China, made importing products more expensive.

For At Home, it was a perfect storm. It had taken on billions in debt to fund the buyout, and when the boom faded, it couldn’t keep up. The result? Store closures, job losses, and a steep financial restructuring.

Why you should care

This isn’t just a story about a furniture store. It’s a window into how economic shifts shape the world around us. The fallout shows up in higher prices, fewer choices, and store closings in your neighborhood.

It’s also a warning: what happened at At Home could happen to other businesses that misread the pandemic surge as permanent or took on too much debt to chase short-term gains.

And if interest rates stay high or tariffs increase, as is being discussed in current trade and economic policy, it won’t just be investors feeling the squeeze. Consumers will see it too, in their wallets and in the retail landscape that’s rapidly being reshaped.