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Updated over 9 years ago,

Account Closed
  • Investor
  • Rancho Santa Fe, CA
14
Votes |
45
Posts

Home Equity Loan To Make Improvements?

Account Closed
  • Investor
  • Rancho Santa Fe, CA
Posted

Hi all,

Thanks in advance for reading. Hoping to get some info on ideas for getting money out of my primary residence so that I can improve it.

I purchased the house for $1.75M. I put 20% down at time of purchase. The house was worth around $2.0 at time of purchase. It's been about 2 years, now it's worth about $2.2 in today's market. Since the purchase, I've also paid down about 50k on the mortgage. So I owe about $1.35. With the right improvements, which might run me around 200k, the home would be worth close to $3M in this market. 

The lot is fabulous, and the home is solid. It just needs a lot of cosmetic help. I purchased the home with the intent to improve it. the only problem was that I put all of my $ into purchasing the home and didn't have any left for improvements, so I will need a loan to do most of the work on the home. 

Nothing here sells for less than about $2M today, and those homes are smaller with inferior lots (and outdated as well). 

To qualify for a home equity loan, what will they be looking for to qualify me? Loan To Value. My credit score. Debt to income ratio. The last one might be an issue as I have loans on other investment properties. And my husband tells me that banks typically don't I count rental income when considering my income, which is unfortunate for my situation. Is this true? 

Anything else they will consider when trying to get a home equity loan? 

If I cannot get a home equity loan, what other options might I have? I'm tired of living in a fixer-upper and I'd also like to finish the house and put it on the market sooner than later. Hard money lending scares me a bit, so I probably wouldn't want to go that route, either. 

Thank you, 

Mary