How to finance a home addition: 3 Options to consider

by Susan Hu 05/04/2025

Expanding your home to add value and square footage can be costly, so it’s important to know how to finance a home addition. Just like with buying a home, there are many loan options available to homeowners to fund their projects.

Here is a quick guide to the most common options for financing an addition to your home:

Home equity line of credit

A home equity line of credit allows you to utilize the equity you’ve already built in your home. Equity is equal to the value of your home minus the amount you still owe on your mortgage.

A home equity line of credit typically has a draw period in which you can tap into funds while only paying interest payments. After the draw period ends, you enter a repayment period and start paying back the principal amount.

Government sponsored loans

Title I loans offered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development are available to help fund renovation projects. Requirements for qualifying vary from one state to another, but are meant to fund improvements to basic utility and livability of your home.

Therefore, if your remodeling project is purely aesthetic, you may want to consider a different type of financing.

Personal home improvement loan

A personal loan isn’t tied to the value of your home, but dependent on your individual financial situation. Credit history and debt to income ratio are the main factors lenders will consider when approving you for a personal loan.

This type of home improvement loan offers flexibility for those who don’t want to use their house as collateral. They can also be a good option for homeowners who haven’t had time to build equity in their property yet.

These are only a few options for financing your home remodeling project. Some other possibilities include home equity loans, cash out refinance programs and low-interest rate credit cards for smaller projects. As long as you compare your options carefully, you’ll find the best way to fund your remodeling goals.

About the Author
Author

Susan Hu

Susan Shuxian Hu has been a dedicated realtor serving in Silicon Valley since 2010. With great passion, outstanding negotiation skills and due diligence, she has helped many buyers and sellers in their real estate needs. Living in West San Jose for more than 14 years, she has broad knowledge in Cupertino, West San Jose, Los Altos and Saratoga. She has enormous patience working with buyers and never tired of showing all possible properties that may fit client’s needs. Clients appreciate her best service to their satisfaction. She specialized in luxurious real estate purchase in Los Altos, Cupertino, Saratoga and Palo Alto. She also helped friend and past client’s referral working in San Francisco, Foster City and far reached Bay Area.

Susan Shuxian Hu was graduated in East China Normal University in Shanghai with bachelor and master degrees in Bio science. She came to US in 1989 and earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics in Texas A&M University in 1996. After one year of postdoc in Southern Florida University in Tampa, she moved back to Orlando with her family and started working in Lucent Technologies. In 2002, Susan moved to California, Silicon Valley joined a start-up company. Since then she worked in high tech Corporation till 2009. Driven by her dream job pursuing, she found her passion working in sales by helping people in real estate after one year of education in De Anza business and real estate law study. Since then, she has been serving many people in Bay Area for their real estate needs.

With bilingual advantage, she has been actively working with Chinese immigrants as well as local engineers and residents. With rich high tech background and connection with Chinese community, Susan has served in luxurious real estate in last a couple of years.