Save money with home renovations

With November being Financial Literacy Month, we wanted to share some information about investing in your home to help you save, and make money. Introducing home renovations!

We have all heard the old saying that “You have to spend money to make money.” Investing in renovating your home presents a number of great opportunities for you to increase the value and lower your total cost of ownership.

You can increase the value of your property

When you are looking to renovate, you need to focus on the types of work that add value. Big projects to look at include additions, kitchens, bathrooms, windows, and doors. Even tackling little projects like painting, lighting, and brightening, and landscaping can have significant impacts on the appraised value of your home. Take a look at this article by the Appraisal Institute of Canada for more information.

You can reduce the operating cost of your property

There are literally hundreds of changes you can make to help you save money on home renovations. The best place to start is an energy audit, which you can find more information on by following this link provided by Efficiency Nova Scotia. They will be able to set you on the right track with regards to identifying the best opportunities. Improving insulation, upgrading windows and doors, and replacing old HVAC equipment and appliances will be the big-ticket transactions. But little things like replacing light fixtures, thermostats, and properly sealing window casings can go a long way.

You can reduce your borrowing costs

Building a more energy efficient home can reduce more than just your monthly power bill. For example, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation will provide up to a 25 per cent premium refund for people who can improve the efficiency of their home by 40 per cent. You can find out more about the program by following this link. Efficiency Nova Scotia also has a number of grant programs to help offset some costs, which you can read about here.

Finally, what steps you have to take

The best way in our opinion to pay for this to leverage the existing equity in your home (Equity Draw Financing). If you already have greater than 20 per cent equity in your home, these funds can be released pretty quickly to pay for any renovation work.

Another option would be to use use the future value of your home (Construction Draw Financing). Essentially, at regular intervals, money will be released as the work is completed to pay contractors.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out. We would love to hear about your project and provide some recommendations on how you could proceed with home renovations.

Have more questions? Feel free to contact us!