Explore my personal favorites, Set For Life by Scott Trench or The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, for invaluable financial insights.3.

The interest rate on a HELOC or Heloan may be better than the personal loan. 

Personally, my primary residence has appreciated around 6% in market value and I live in Levittown. 

Are you interested in S8 because of a personal reason or you think it's the next "hot" investment idea?

This will allow you to remove the person and do the financing on your own.Home Equity Loan/Line of Credit: Since you're looking to access equity, a home equity loan or line of credit (HELOC) can be a good option.

Personally, I've felt the investment has been poorly run in almost every possible way.

I got a deal on labor as I know the contractor personally and helped out a bit with the project.

You need to make sure you're working with someone whose sending you personalized deal flow that actually meets your buying criteria.

We will shop for used appliances where we can when we need one… or pick up used cabinets if we can, or search eBay for something smaller,  but going to the extreme of personally shipping something big in internationally for one-off renovation needs seems like a stretch of reasonable.Just like you mention, the number of unknowns would not seem to be worth it to me.Just my 2 cents.Randy  

Personal finance is as much behavioral as it is math.