How to finance home improvement costs?

Question

Hello,

Does anyone have any creative ways to finance home improvements? I am currently planning on using an FHA loan, and would like to find a way to finance repair costs without turning it into an FHA 203k loan. Ideally, I'd like to pay it off over a longer-term. If anyone has used any creative strategies to finance 30k-50k, I'd appreciate any input. Thanks!

Paul Welden · Answer

@Kyle Marsh

If you don't want to use the FHA 203k option, consider its conventional cousins ... Fannie Mae Homestyle and Freddie Mac CHOICERenovation.

Otherwise, I have used getting new reward credit cards for the signup bonus points (or cashback) for when I need to spend a large amount of $$$. You could get 2-4 new credit cards with reward/travel points; meet the min spend requirements to get the signup bonus points; pay off the credit cards with your cash reserves before you get charged interest.

Then you will have enough points for multiple roundtrip airline tickets (or hotel points) to anywhere in the world. Might as well get something free out of spending money. It's just a smarter way to spend money that you were already going to spend. I recently did this for a new $11k HVAC system and earned 110k travel points which is enough for 2 roundtrip airline tickets to most international destinations or 4+ roundtrip domestic flights.

Hope this helps!

Nathan Gesner · Answer

Fannie May Homestyle or FHA 203k. There are alternatives but I know nothing about them. You'll have to research and see what works best for you:

https://www.renofi.com/guides/...