Rick Howe: Home renovations

Talking spring home renovations

Talking About Spring Home Renovations. Don’t feel like listening? Check out the audio transcript below.

This is a five minute business builder with Rick Howe, where your business comes first, on News 95.7.

Five-minute business builder with Rick Howe

Rick: [00:00:08] All right. 12:23 is the time and from time to time we welcome members of the business community to join us to tell us more about what they do and back with us here this afternoon is senior mortgage advisor Clinton Wilkins. How you doing Clinton?

Clinton: [00:00:19] I’m doing just great. Thanks for having me Rick.

Rick: [00:00:21] Well thank you for coming back here today and you want to talk about home renovations for the most part here. Well fill us in on this and how a mortgage advisor gets to play a role in renovations.

February is the month of love

Clinton: [00:00:31] I know just think about all the interesting things I get to do every day. It’s the last day of February and everyone knows February is the month of love. I don’t know. I don’t know if you know how you feel about that but a lot of people.

Rick: [00:00:42] Well I don’t love February.

Clinton: [00:00:43] You don’t love February, I mean the weather’s supposed to be getting warmer and I think with the warmer weather means you may want to look at improving your home.

Rick: [00:00:51] Yeah.

Spring home renovations

Clinton: [00:00:51] You know, some people are in the market for buying homes and I think that’s a great time to get pre-approved and start thinking about that because the spring market is right around the corner. But, for those of us who already are homeowners I think improving your existing home is becoming more and more popular. And I think that in February it’s a great time to plan forward for doing these renovations that come in into the spring.

You know, people are going to think about doing decks, they’re going to start thinking about doing their roofs, siding, windows, things like this. The outdoor renovations that you wouldn’t normally do during these winter months. Right now we’ve been in bit of a deep freeze. But, you know, it’s exciting to think about the spring coming and what can we do with our homes to improve our real estate. You know, your home is your biggest asset and I think improving it definitely has a value.

Rick: [00:01:37] Well again spring is the time when people start to look at home renovations and such and some of it they hire contractors some of it they do it themselves. But as well some of it could be very costly.

Save the headache and plan ahead

Clinton: [00:01:47] 100 percent costly, and you know some people have the savings set aside and some people have you know unsecured credit that they can afford to personally finance, you know, the improvements in the home but that can be very costly as well. We really believe that the debt that is involved in your home should really be secured against your home. It’s the cheapest way to borrow. And oftentimes clients have equity in their home and they can finance up to 80 percent of the value of the home.

In terms of getting equity out so whether that means reworking the existing first mortgage that they might have on their property, or maybe potentially doing a home equity line of credit or something like that. You know, it’s a great time to think about it and it’s a great time to get it set up now. So we always say, you know, it’s a great time to get everything done before you start. Sometimes we see clients that come into the office and they are running out of money, or they need to, you know, do something and they’re in midstream of the renovations and sometimes that can be complicated just because maybe their property isn’t a hundred percent complete.

Maybe they’ve demoed some of their property and then they need to finance it and that can be a bit of a challenge. So oftentimes we recommend getting something set up in advance. Know what you can afford. Have a quote and then go at it systematically. I think planning, you know, definitely has a lot of value. And, you know, why not think about it in February. You know spring is literally it’s going to be what the 20th or 21st of March, three weeks and we’ll be into spring.

Spring is just around the corner

Rick: [00:03:10] Yeah. Well we hope we will. I mean it’ll be officially spring.

Clinton: [00:03:13] It’ll be officially spring. I think the good weather is really around around the corner. I know it’s been cold the last few days. But, thinking about improving your home and loving her home I think definitely has a lot of value and why not love your biggest asset.

Rick: [00:03:26] So, you’re looking at let’s say a deck and you’re looking probably at ten to twenty thousand dollars in that range?

Clinton: [00:03:30] I think that’s definitely realistic based on the quotes that I’ve seen come in from contractors.

Reworking your mortgage

Rick: [00:03:33] So I could rework my mortgage to get that money to pay for the deck work?

Clinton: [00:03:38] One hundred percent. So typically the way that it works is if you own your home already you can finance up to 80 percent of the value of the home, less how much you owe, of course. And then, you know, pay for that improvement upfront. Oftentimes clients come in to see us and they’re like well we’re not exactly sure how much our improvements are going to be. I think getting a quote from licensed contractor definitely is worthwhile.

So you know how much you’re going to spend. Everybody spends more. And I think having a bit of a buffer definitely has a value as well. If you’re planning on financing your renovations and you’re planning on securitizing it against the house I think knowing how much you’re going to need to spend definitely has a lot of value and I think starting with an unbiased mortgage professional definitely has a lot of value.

What about the rates?

Rick: [00:04:20] And rates are still pretty good?

Clinton: [00:04:22] The rates are great. You know, a lot of our clients are doing a variable rate product and I can tell you that there is really, really great rates out there. They can certainly check us out online at teamclinton.ca/radio Our contact information is on there and there’s some rates. If anybody has any questions about renovations or how they may want to love their home. They can certainly reach out to us.

Rick: [00:04:40] All right. That is senior mortgage advisor Clinton Wilkins. Thank you for dropping by again.

Clinton: [00:04:44] Thanks for having us Rick. We’ll talk to you soon.

Rick: [00:04:45] All right.

Have any questions? Get in touch with us!