July 18, 2008

Do you need a home improvement loan or a construction loan?

by Rick Gomez

Most houses over ten years old will require some remodeling to help freshen up their look. This may not be needed if your home is relatively new or if you built it yourself as the standard is usually higher but if your home is a little older or you live in an area of strong weather patterns then it might be something worth looking at.

If you enjoy doing this type of work on your home then it shouldn’t be a problem but if you do not like any type of remodeling work then it will need to be financed. A whole host of shows are now made to encourage people to carry out home makeovers themselves and are becoming very popular. Others enjoy visiting show homes and looking at the different layouts, floor plans and color schemes so if you are into that then remodeling and upgrading your home is ideal.

I imagine you would already have an idea of how you would pay for it but if you had no idea, FHA has a home improvement loan and you should seriously consider this because this could be an answer to your prayers. The FHA or Federal Housing Association can arrange loans up to twenty five thousand dollars but the beauty of their loans is they are not equity based so then can actually be greater than the market value of the home.

The loans allow for alterations to be made to the existing property, providing they are not major and for building other buildings on the land providing they are not used for living in. For homeowners that have started small projects in the past but never finished the work, these can now be completed without worrying about how much equity is in their home. A major remodeling construction loan requires the payoff of any 1st trust deeds via the construction loan. This one time close construction loan provide you with a whole new loan including the money to build.

The amount lent will depend on personal circumstances and the full amount is not guaranteed but whatever the amount it can be insured for up to twenty years even if the property is home to more than one family. With all the financial worries in housing and mortgages that are circulating you will happy to learn that these home improvement loans are calculated at a fixed rate of interest. The housing industry has been receiving some bad press of late and a great deal of doom and gloom prophecies are made.

That does not mean you should ignore the information that is presented but just to keep an open mind about the housing market. Never forget that many people have come out of a situation badly when they did not have enough information but rarely does that happen when they have a great deal of knowledge. Whether your home remodeling project gets to move forward will depend on how much information you learn about FHA loans.

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