How did you pay for your renovations? HELOC? LOC? Cash? HEL?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cash. I would put it off for another year if you need to.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone is really paying in cash?

OP - I had the same question as you. We need to update our kitchen soon and I saw that other thread asking if $65k was the norm for kitchens.

Are people really paying cash for renovations that expensive?

Yes. Unless it is an emergency/a “must” such as e.g. a roof repair, then it is a want and not a need. If we can’t afford to pay for it out of pocket, then we cannot afford it.

[Anonymous]

We are doing construction to perm and refinancing our whole mortgage into our new appraised value.

[Anonymous]

Cash all the way. We did our basement and then a few years later the kitchen/family room.

[Anonymous]

We refinanced and took out $100k in equity to do kitchen/bathroom/basement. We had saved for 10 years and didn’t have the cash to do it, so this allowed us to turn it into a home we can stay in for another 10 years.

[Anonymous]

My old house had an enclosed porch added to house around 1978. No permits.

After I bought house I was talking to old neighbor as was getting a permit for it to prevent trouble down the road.

He started laughing. His neighbor threw a bbq pool party with beer and had wives and kids over.

Told the men to bring their room tools and stuff we are building something!

They threw it up in a few hours over beers and burgers.

My neighbor said he helped and is shocked it is still standing.

Funny today some contractor would charge 75k for it.

[Anonymous]

A lot of contracts discount for cash.

[Anonymous]

Many people are refinancing now

[Anonymous]

Do not do cash. You want that bank inspector as a first line of defense against contractors who bill in advance or bill for work that's super shoddy. Get a loan and pay if off at the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do not do cash. You want that bank inspector as a first line of defense against contractors who bill in advance or bill for work that's super shoddy. Get a loan and pay if off at the end.

This is only construction loans right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are doing construction to perm and refinancing our whole mortgage into our new appraised value.

We're doing this too: we didn't have enough equity, and were considering refinancing anyway - best of both worlds this way. Our house appraised for just under what we paid initially and what we're putting into it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are doing construction to perm and refinancing our whole mortgage into our new appraised value.

We're doing this too: we didn't have enough equity, and were considering refinancing anyway - best of both worlds this way. Our house appraised for just under what we paid initially and what we're putting into it.

I'm the PP. You're ahead of me, we haven't gotten to the appraisal yet and I'm a little nervous that we will be close to cover our expected costs. We want to save a lot of cash on hand to cover extras and decorating. How did that process go? What do you mean your house appraised under what you paid/put in? So you're not that badly off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are doing construction to perm and refinancing our whole mortgage into our new appraised value.

We're doing this too: we didn't have enough equity, and were considering refinancing anyway - best of both worlds this way. Our house appraised for just under what we paid initially and what we're putting into it.

I'm the PP. You're ahead of me, we haven't gotten to the appraisal yet and I'm a little nervous that we will be close to cover our expected costs. We want to save a lot of cash on hand to cover extras and decorating. How did that process go? What do you mean your house appraised under what you paid/put in? So you're not that badly off?

House appraised (during loan process) for about what we initially paid, plus what we're paying for the new work (it was about 3% less: so with a $1.5M house, that margin is pretty good I thought - but did mean that we had to bring more cash to close than I wanted to (means less money in our furnishing & some day vacation budget). We could have had the house re-appraised (the bank hires the appraiser - I think we could have requested that still) but we were up against time since we wanted to close and lock in the good interest rate on the loan which has started creeping back up. Good luck! We did get quotes from several banks - not a ton do construction loans, but rates varied wildly!