My city offers low interest loans to elderly people to fix up their yards and homes.

Do you have enough windows to let in natural light? Code requires 10% of the wall space as window space in a non-walkout to be counted as an occupied space. For example, if the finished section of your basement is 700 sq. ft., you need 70 sq. ft. of window area, or 2 5×7 windows. Hope this helps.

If your basement is finished with carpeting and most importantly a ceiling and is suitable as living space, then yes you can count it as square footage when listing.

In some areas there are grants and/or plants available to individuals who wish to create Rain Gardens.

You might want to check in your area.

Ask a real estate agent about it. A basement adds to the square footage whether it’s a walk out or not.

Hmmm.. Well, nothing that I know of. I know it can get expensive….

Look in the local paper or on one of the following sites:
People will somtimes give away supplies they no longer need/want, or atleast will sell very cheap.

And, for some frugal gardening tips:

(might give some ideas?)

tell me more…..what are you doing? are you replacing the whole kitchen cabinets or just the appliances…? let me know how much have you done…or you are about to start?….i am a designer and a drafter….and i can assist you in the process but i need to charge you….but we can talk later about money….first email me at if you need my assistance

Check for color coordination first! especially the ceiling and walls, your paint should “match” your appliance/equipment… Start from the the top (ceiling) then the walls then the floor… then the appliance.

Before placing anything, study and use the ‘triangle’ principle.
For an effective kitchen you should have your refrigerator, oven and sink/dishwasher placed on a triangle format. Once you’ve figured that out, it will become very easy to move one. And always, leave twice as much counterspace as you think you will need. Hope this helps, and I envy your new kitchen!

start with the counter because hardest to fit and cut the wood then measure the granite and have cut to same size, then install you sink etc. gl the shell is where you start meaning where things will eventually end up so start the wood of counter. gl

The usual sequence is that you have the old appliances and cupboards removed, then you have the new cupboards and apparrel installed and finally the sink and the electric appliances.
What does your supplier suggest?

A loan taken out for reasons other than to buy, build, or substantially improve your home, such as to pay off personal debts may qualify as home equity debt. The interest would be deducted on Form 1040, Schedule A, Itemized Deductions. The amount you can deduct as interest on home equity debt is subject to certain limitations. For more information, refer to Publication 936, Home Mortgage Interest Deduction; and Tax Topic 505, Interest Expense.

Most definitely. The addition to your home can also add to the “basis” of your home (the cost of buying the home) to reduce any potential gain when you sell. While increasing your basis is not a huge consideration these days due to the 250,000/500,000 exemption on personal residence - It may be helpful at some point if you live in a market where the home values have soared more than that.

Yes. And the remodeling expense is also a tax deduction, either as a “repair” or an “improvement”.

start with the walls!

Yes you can use the equity in your home for many things including a car

SAD lights are really expensive just buy one that everyone can share. But if I was redoing the lighting in my home I would go LED now it’s saves so much in hydro, it’s more expensive now but will save over the years with your hydro bills. And they look good. Halogen gets so hot it’s actually burned the plastic on one of my fixtures so don’t go halogen unless they are metal fixtures. Also the compact florescent light bulbs now come in more shapes and styles so you could look at that as well and it will save you again in Hydro bills. Go to a really good lighting store and really compare the styles and wattage. Another thing is get sheers for privacy and have blind underneath or night time use. Natural light is really the best and should prevent SAD if you have a nice big window with southern exposure, sort of a pain in summer but that’s where the blinds and sheers help.

Here’s the real problem you are going to have. You will buy a house that is very close to it’s real value. It will be cheaper because it is in poor condition.

You need money to bring the condition of the property up to bring it’s value up. The bank won’t lend on ‘future value’ or ‘future condition’ because they have no way of guaranteeing that you’ll put the money into the house.

If the house is worth $250,000 and you have a mortgage out for $225,000 (90%), they aren’t going to lend you very much. From the bank’s point of view they aren’t going to lend you another $75,000 (exceeding the value of the house by $50,000) because you could take that $75,000 and, essentially dissapear.

The other issue that you may have is that home values are still dropping in CA. If you bought a house today for $300,000 and waited a year to get a home equity loan, your house might only be worth $270,000, making it tough to borrow money from it.

One way to do it is to improve it very slowly and start with the things that you can afford on top of your mortgage payments. Do it all yourself (learn how to do it right). After a few minor projects you may have improved it enough to increase it’s value.

If that is too slow, another (very, very risky) way to do it would be to borrow the money on a credit card, do the improvements and hope that the completed project would appraise high enough to get that equity loan and pay your credit cards off with the equity loan (not, not, not recommending that you actually do that).

good luck!

also home equity lenders are no longer going up to 100% of the value like they used to do. They want you to have some ’skin in the game’ so to speak - a financial incentive and anchor to the house.

Its not bad to refinance at all. That’s what people typically do to pay for those big home improvement jobs.

You can check your equity in your current home here.
Then get some free refinance or home equity loan quotes from local lenders in your area.

YOUR query is the stuff of which
very happy and very mad people are
dealing with; my refi loan took 6mo to
complete. MOST lenders [3 yrs ago]
would not consider a re-fi till I owned the
house 1 yr.

So, it is only what a lender will do.
ASK your mortgage broker to ask
at least 25 lenders.
and do not pay for any fees
out of your pocket! [I stupidly did]