NEED ADVICE: Homeowners - HE Loans and/or Siding?

[neadods]

I've got tons of online stuff to catch up on, which is on the list of things for tonight. BUT - the reason I didn't get back online last night was because I got a 2.5-hour pitch for insulated siding. Thanks to the home show last weekend, I'm signed up for two more pitches this week alone.

The good: More insulation, which this house needs desperately. Also, no more need to worry about repainting, paint flaking, gutters rusting, etc.

The interesting: I can change the house color from barn red (which I've always been "meh" about) to something nicer. M's pumping for a navy blue with light blue trim.

The bad: $30,000.

And I have to ask myself: am I working so hard to get myself out of debt only to put myself back in by 30 grand? But on the *other* hand, I can likely get most/all of that funding out of a home equity loan, and it seems to me that it's not unreasonable for the house to pay for its own major renovations. It's not like I'd be blowing my equity on crack and whores things that don't affect the livability/resale value of the house. And my mortgage payments have dropped; rolling an equity repayment into them would make for a not-too awful monthly increase, one that would hopefully be offset by lowering the high air conditioning bills and obscene oil bills (seriously, the last one was four figures) that I'm currently paying.

I don't know what that does to my credit rating and the long-term plan to fix the unsecured loan side of my life. Possibly nothing, as an HE loan is secured. OTOH, I *may* be able to squeak along until Discover is paid/replaced and then deal with the siding; the estimate is good for a year.

And I have to do SOMETHING about the peeling paint on the house; so I'm in for around $4,000 of repairs/repainting/general exterior work regardless. Although presumably I could ask the painter to use navy blue, now that I'm thinking about changing the color.

So: fellow homeowners. What would you do/have you done? Have you taken a home equity loan and was it worth it? What did that do your overall credit rating, do you know? Have you gotten siding and was it worth it?

Comments

[raqs.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I didn't see the part about "what will this do to my credit rating", so I'll answer that. As long as you pay all your debts on time, what mostly affects your credit rating is how much you owe compared to how much credit you have. That is,

I owe 3,000 but have credit of 40,000 (combined credit cards and HELOC limits) = good credit rating.

I owe 3,000 but have credit of 5,000 (combined credit cards and HELOC limits) = bad credit rating.

It's HOW MUCH of your available credit you've used that makes the biggest difference.

In general, you don't want to add debt to something like your HOUSE that you need to live in unless you really can afford it. If something happens and you can't pay that debt, they take your HOUSE. Much worse than just getting a bad credit rating if you default on some credit cards.

Hope that helps - srsly, send me an LJ message if you want to chew it over some more.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

You've answered the biggies - the parts that I am willing to make public are "it's not just Discover" and "Everyone's IRA will buy maybe a happy meal these days"* and "Not underwater, HUZZAH, but it hasn't appreciated either." Or more accurately, it did appreciate and then the market tanked, bringing it back down to about what I bought it for. I actually *paid* a significant percentage up front... so significant that the credit union actually fussed because they couldn't bundle and sell a mortgage that low. (And doesn't *that* delight me these days!)


*Retirement issues are a whole different discussion. People I know who worked all their lives and invested and planned still got shafted sideways due to the economy. Frankly, my retirement plan is "I don't."

This has given me a lot to chew on. Thank you.