Rehab Financing Strategies

[Chase Harmon]

Question: What is the best rehab financing strategy for someone with strong monthly income but minimal savings?

Context: 

I purchased a duplex that requires a substantial amount of rehab. I am a strong believer in doing everything once (i.e. know how to replace a toilet, lay floor, etc.) however the excitement of rehabbing on weekends and outside of my 50+ hr a week job is losing its appeal fast!

My wife and I have strong incomes that allow us to have $4-6k in savings each month after paying all expenses. However, we have very little currently in savings. We have been paying for repairs/jobs monthly but would like to accelerate the rehab of the second unit (roughly $30k in rehab). Therefore, have a couple ideas floating around that I would like some perspective on.

• Should we finish the rehab on unit 1, have the house reappraised to capture the forced appreciation and then take a loan out against the house (purchased the house with 3% down)
• Explore other financing options (Note: we do not have access to friends/family money)
• Continue with our current approach of budgeting repairs each month

Obviously our two main goals are to minimize interest paid and minimize the time required to rehab unit 2.

Thanks for the help!