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Financing a major home renovation


Ideally, you would combine the construction loan with your existing mortgage into a new first mortgage. You'd only look at a second mortgage (home equity loan) if the appraisal weren't high enough to justify the new, larger first mortgage.

The real key to successfully financing the addition is in how the addition increases the appraised value of your home. Paybackestimator provides both regional and national averages for different remodeling projects.

Let's just say for discussion purposes that you'll realize 80 cents on the dollar for your addition in a best-case scenario and 60 cents on the dollar in a worst-case scenario.

The higher the loan-to-value, the harder it will be to roll the construction loan into a new first mortgage. That's when you would want to consider a home equity loan vs. refinancing.