How do people fianance their renovations?

I just bought a house and need to renovate the kitchen, but I don't think we have enough savings left to do it. Is there a way to borrow money for home renovations? How do people typically finance their renovations? Do you have to have it all saved up or are there loan options?

TIA

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

You can take out a home equity loan - but you need to have equity obviously

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

honestly I think the only other option other than a home equity loan is maybe taking advantage of any offers from one of your credit card companies.....they sometimes have those blank checks you can write out to yourself and it draws against your credit limit, usually charging a 3-5% fee of the overall amount you're withdrawing. Of course this is only a good short term option since even if you have a 0% offer it usually only lasts 12-15 months, so I probably wouldnt' go that route if you couldn't see paying it down in the next year (i.e. with a tax refund or some other cash windfall). good luck, renovations are so draining (on your wallet and your mind! lol).....it took us almost 9 months to finish our kitchen (DH was doing the work himself)

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

we had some cash saved, then charged and now are paying for it. Best bet wait for the cash to be saved up. If you need new appliances try to find some used to hold you over.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

Wait and save more for it.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

We looked into refinancing to take out equity to put towards our renovations.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

We do the work ourselves, and only buy the parts for the project as we go along. So, right now we're doing a bathroom. DH only has some pipe purchased for moving existing pipes. When we are ready to sheet-rock, we'll buy that. When we are ready to paint, then I'll buy that. Tile, same thing...then the vanity etc.

You can also use a Lowe's or Home Depot credit card and put big ticket items on there when they have their 12 or 18 month no interest promotions. We do this all the time, and I pay things off over time.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

We did a combination.

We had some money saved, bought most of the material from Home Depot and did the no interest for 12 months thing and we took out a home equity for everything else. We ended paying for the labor with the cash we saved and after the home depot purchases we used our home equity.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

With our last house we took out a home equity line of credit and also used savings/bonuses, but we did projects one at a time.

We are currently buying a fixer upper (total gut needed) and we are taking out a renovation mortgage (Wells Fargo's Purchase & Renovate Loan) since the costs are higher and everything needs to be done at once.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

Tax refund and saving for it.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

we haven't done any major renovations but god knows how much we spent on the house already - def thousands new appliances and washer and dryer, stair renovation, new flooring in 2 rooms, paint, ceiling fans and light fixtures, door and cabinet hardware, the list goes on and on

we had some money left over after we bought the house, the 8k tax credit, saving money...we try to do one project at a time...and save cash...the only thing we bought on credit was our appliances but we paid it off when we got the 8k tax credit...

if we were doing a 20k reno say for a kitchen or bath we'd have to save up for a really long time or take out a loan

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

My SIL gets everything from Home Depot and uses her credit card from them (siding, etc.)

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

we did combination....saved for it and used Home Depot so we can get whatever we can get for no interest no payments for 1 year. that helped out a lot!

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

Our kitchen will be done with savings and maybe our tax refund. I can't stomach the idea of a HE loan when the house has lost so much value.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

We did our renovations with savings.

I was adamant about not taking out any loans on top of our mortgage to fix up our home. If I wanted higher monthly payments, I would have bought a bigger/more expensive house.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

my friend just did this, they added and additon and what they did was something along the lines of refinancing with adding in the costs of the addition so I think her mortgage payment went up $150 bucks or something like that. They bought a few years ago though, not sure it's an option if you just bought...

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

We just moved in. For me I'm working on paying down the mortgage. DH saves money from his pay for our emergency fund and other savings. I'd rather pay cash but we may do a combination of cash and financing.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

we're saving for it. I shower everyday in my 1956 pink and black bathroom. What can you do? I was more concerned with saving $ for my second maternity leave then having an updated bathroom. It'll eventually get done.

Re: How do people fianance their renovations?

Mosh, I think we have the same bathroom!

We just moved in and our plan is to save and do as much as we can on our own. We're planning to build up in a few years, which we'll pay for just by saving as much as possible each month.