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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]cash, [b]that is not a lot of money [/b]and keep the heloc just in case you decide to do more renovations[/quote]

Speak for yourself!  For most people in the country -- myself included -- $100k is a LOT of money.  Borrowing 100k will increase our TOTAL debt (all debt including mortgage) by 50 percent.  It's also significantly more than our annual income.  It's almost half what I paid for my entire house.

Even among some of the mega rich that seem to hang out here, $100k is a lot of money.

This is the OP by the way and I appreciate the suggestion of the other poster.  We may take that approach.[/quote]

I'm with the pp for the most part, you shouldn't do 100K renovations if you think it's a lot of cash.  Michelle Singletary says the only thing you should use a HELOC for is emergency repairs, like a roof.  Anything cosmetic is a want and you should pay cash for it.  We just did 200K in renovations and put just under 50K on HELOC.  We saved for years, have no other debt, and a 15 year mortage that is well less than half the home's value, fwiw.[/quote]

Sigh.  OP here again.  [b]Having a conversation here sometimes is like banging my head against a brick wall[/b].  If you saved for years how on earth can you not think it's a lot of money?  I wasn't asking if we can afford it, and we certainly can.  Here, lets see what you think:  We have a net worth of over $1million.  Our home is currently worth about $600k but we owe less than $400k.  We have 15 years left on the mortgage but could pay off the entire amount tomorrow, cash.  Apart from our (small by DC standards) mortgage we have NO other debt.  Still, $100k IS A LOT OF MONEY!

I think my question seems to have been lost here.  Among the drivel and people who think that $100k is pocket change, there is sometimes some pretty good advice here that can raise issues that might other wise have been overlooked.  What I'm asking isn't whether we can afford it, but whether we are better off investing the cash and getting X rate of return (where X may be negative depending on how it is invested but may well beat out the cost of interest on the HELOC plus advantage of being tax deductible.)  Does anyone have any thoughts on that matter?  If not, I shall consult google and see if I can find a calculator or spreadsheet program that will help me work out what rate of return I'd need to get for it to make sense to borrow rather than spend. 
[/quote]

:roll:

My answer still stands with your general OP, and limited information.  Because it's a cosmetic renovation pay it off.  You *may* be able to get a slightly better rate of return, but given the new information on your 1m net worth, then yes, 100K is a pretty small figure.  When you consider that it's going to something totally unnecessary (you didn't mention a leaky roof) then yes, you could argue it's a lot of discretionary money.  I never said it was pocket change, you just got your panties in an angry wad.  [/quote]

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