Home renovations underway

Money Matters: 3 Tips in Financing Your Home’s Renovation – Our Guide

Working on a home renovation project can be a tricky matter, especially if you don’t know where to get the money to match the house improvements you’ll need. As a homeowner, it is vital to ensure that your financial choices work towards your benefit and not result in greater debt.

Making the right financial choices

Dealing with house renovations is a matter of understanding your finances and knowing your options in borrowing money from accredited lenders. If you’re planning a new house extension or saving up for some much-needed updates to your amenities, here are three tips to help finance your home improvement project:

1. Work out your current and future budget

A recurring mistake that homeowners make during their renovation project is that they don’t know how much it will cost them. Working out your budget should be the first item on your list so that you can track how near or far you are from your goal.

You should make a quote of all the materials, furniture, and appliances that you’ll need for your renovation project. Then, try to get different quotes on each product to make a lower and upper limit of your material expenses.

If you’re doing a small project that can fit in a room, the figures you’ll end up with will show a close estimate of how much you’ll spend. On the other hand, if you’re doing a large scale installation, you’ll also need to consider the corresponding labour fees in hiring contractors to perform the job. The longer the project is, the more costly your bill will be.

2. Renegotiate your mortgage payments

Once you have an estimated figure of your renovation cost, you can then plot how you’ll reach that target. There are many ways to save up for your house project. Sometimes, banks will allow you to negotiate with a more favourable rate if you have more than 20% equity since this will enable you to switch to another lender easily.

To successfully haggle with your current lender, you should do research on other competitors and note their respective rates. By presenting this information to your lender, you can have more room in demanding lower rates or extended payment dates.

3. Seek out a personal loan

Different lenders in the market offer varying limits and rates for personal loans. Unsecured loans can be more suited to finance your home renovation project if you’ll be borrowing something in between $5,000 and $30,000. Some lenders can also offer this amount for a loan term spanning over seven years.

If you’ll be dealing with a larger project, such as kitchen or bathroom upgrades, an increase in your existing home loan may be your best bet. These  borrowing methods have lower rates compared to unsecured loans but the loan term is longer. 

Conclusion

In planning a renovation project, you should always consider whether the updates will add value to your property. By doing the proper research and securing the right contractors in doing the job, you won’t just end up with a more enjoyable living space, but you’ll also be investing in your home’s resale value in the future.

At Brickhill, we provide the best credit and funding advice to homeowners who are in need of refinancing their home improvement projects. If you’re looking for debt consolidation on the  North Shore, get in touch with us today, and we’ll be happy to answer your questions!