Have any of you opened/used a home equity line for home remodels/repairs? I know some people open them when they buy their homes, whether they are used or not. We have one open but have never used it and are considering using it for some major home projects.

Thoughts? TIA

By Karen~admin on Sunday, February 18, 2007 - 04:59 pm:

me me me

We opened one years ago and used it for new flooring and for a new A/C. We then used it again 18 months ago for new flooring (again), and it's still open. The beauty of it is the interest is tax deductible.

By Amecmom on Sunday, February 18, 2007 - 06:19 pm:

Yes. We used ours for new windows and other home repairs. It is a godsend. It's comforting to know that if you need to do some major repairs in an emergency you will not have to go into your savings to pay for them.
Ame

By Reds9298 on Sunday, February 18, 2007 - 10:07 pm:

Thanks ladies. I knew about it being tax deductible and think that's a great advantage. I appreciate your input.

By Ginny~moderator on Monday, February 19, 2007 - 12:04 pm:

Absolutely - that's what a home equity line of credit should be used for. I will admit, I used mine a couple of years ago to pay off high-interest credit card bills because the home equity loan has a much lower interest rate, but that's all paid off now and for the moment, the only debt I have is my mortgage and monthly credit cards bills which are paid off in full each month. Would not have been able to do so easily it without the home equity line of credit.

By Debbie on Monday, February 19, 2007 - 12:24 pm:

Yes, we used it to finish our basement when we were living in Chicago. And, when we sold the house, we recouped the cost.

By Kittycat_26 on Monday, February 19, 2007 - 02:35 pm:

We are getting ready to use our home equity for the exact same reason as Ginny did years ago. We're planning on paying off alot of debt that we are (hopefully) much wiser about now. Our financial advisor is in favor of using the home equity for this reason; however, his caution was to make sure that we didn't get ourselves back into debt.

By Karen~admin on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 04:58 am:

We did the same thing with the credit card debt years ago, we even put a truck on it when Jeff was in high school because the interest rate was so much cheaper (and tax deductible!) It was paid off 2 years ago, and we use it strictly for *house* stuff now.

By Reds9298 on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 08:54 am:

Thank you very much everyone. I had heard that people use them for lots of different things. My only problem with it is that I keep thinking that's money we won't get out of our house if/when we should sell. We may be moving in the next couple of years, so that could be a downside. On the other hand, there are things that NEED to be done to the house and we don't want to wipe out our savings doing it.

By Debbie on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 09:09 am:

Deanna, since you may be moving soon, I would suggest using the money to do repairs that need to be done to sell, or that will add value to the house. This way, you will get back the money that you are putting into it.

By Reds9298 on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 11:02 am:

That's what they are Debbie. Nothing we really "want", just what "needs" to be done and especially to sell the house in what is a bad market here right now. All the stuff we "wanted" to do we did before. Crawl space repairs, whole house new carpeting, and updating one bathroom. Our carpet is about 12 yrs. old now and showing it, and one bathroom we just never got around to re-doing because we were doing other things. The crawl space problems we just found out about last fall. We know that for sure would not pass inspection.

By Mrsheidi on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 10:38 pm:

We've never used one but it sounds like a good idea for you guys. You should always keep 3 months worth of salary in savings. Good luck!

By Reds9298 on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 - 11:28 am:

3-mth emergency savings isn't part of our regular savings anyway. That's separate and just sits. It's money we pretend we don't have. We just don't feel great about digging into our separate "active" savings.

By Jjandmom on Thursday, February 22, 2007 - 05:20 am:

We did get a home equity line of credit we used it toward getting a new vechile and when it was almost paided off we put another one on top of that, Now as of last Jan we did it again but put the mortage and home quity loan together for a smaller interest payment for the same amount of years owed on my house. One interesr was 8.99 % the other was 8.25 % now we have it locked in for 5.99% and get to claim it all at the end of the year on taxes not to bad.