For those who have renovated their homes...question

I know this is the wrong board but this gets the most traffic.

Since we bought our home, we had a surprise baby. Then my step daughter has been mentioning that when she's done with college she plans on moving in with us. Our forever home has become quite snug.

Our options are to move or to renovate. I really do not feel like packing and moving. I love where we live. Not to mention, the size of the house that we would need would be very costly in my town. My son is established in his elementary school and I don't want to move him.

So renovate it is. We are looking to extend both the downstairs and the upstairs. It's going to be a major project. We estimate it's going to be in the $200K range. For those of you who have done major renovation, how did you finance it? HELOC? Another bank loan? What was involved? We are in the beginning stages of all of this and don't know how to begin.

Re: For those who have renovated their homes...question

How much equity do you have in your home? It may make more sense to refinance than to do a HELOC. Look and see what the interest rates are. I did use a HELOC for a small business I started and it was very easy.

Re: For those who have renovated their homes...question

Re: For those who have renovated their homes...question

do you still have a current mortgage? If so, I believe you can just refinance your current loan and get a home renovation loan. It'll be like a new larger mortgage but gives you the money to do the work you would want.

Re: For those who have renovated their homes...question

I would look to see that you are not over renovating for your neighborhood. A $200k renovation may make your home too expensive for the market. Make sure to do a market analysis to figure out how much a new home would cost.

Re: For those who have renovated their homes...question

Your best bet would be to talk to a professional who can look at your specific case. A lot depends on how much equity you have, what your current mortgage rate is, how much cash you plan on putting towards your construction, etc. There's no one-size-fits-all answer.

For those who have renovated their homes...question

rates are low right now. You should look into refinancing and cashing out 200k. With TFCU, to get the lowest rate your loan-to-value ratio needed to be no more than 60%. Generally speaking though, you can do cash out up to 80% LTV.

We cashed out 54k with our refinance in April to do some work in our kitchen, replace windows, do central AC, and a few other small things on our home. Got a rate of 3.6% (from 4.5% in 2014), and started back at a 30 year mortgage. Our mortgage payment is about $15 more than it was previously.

If rates now are lower than what you currently have, and if your home's equity is high enough, you can get the 200k cash out and do it that way. Keep in mind, however, that with the new tax assessments, you may be subject to a big property tax increase with the extensions you plan to build. Taxes tend to increase more when you build out rather than up

For those who have renovated their homes...question

I have friends who have done the construction loan; it’s a refi based on the value of the house once construction is complete. You must use a co tractor who is approved to do those types of loans. Or you can refi since it sounds like you have enough equity.

We had to make the same choice and decided to renovate/add. I didn’t want to move either, and while living through the work sucked, and I don’t recommend my contractor, I’m glad we did the work.

For those who have renovated their homes...question

We did a heloc with Key Bank. They had decent rates and we were able to take up to 100% of our equity if needed. The rates change based on the % of equity you want. We didn’t want to refi because our rate is soooo low that we would never even get close to what we have.

It was a super easy process. Mostly online but we had to go to a branch for signing which was in the city. But it only took 20mins.

Re: For those who have renovated their homes...question

Re: For those who have renovated their homes...question