re: Home Addition Financial Question

I’m looking at doing the same thing right now- looks like we can do a HELOC until the work is done, then refi with the new square footage at a better rate. Our mortgage is currently 2.875% (7/1 ARM, 6 years into the ARM), so we want to refinance soon anyway. We’ll get the HELOC to do the work, then refinance the whole note. It won’t make that much difference in the note, but it will make us reset our loan term to 30 years again, which sucks but we’re not going anywhere any time soon, so we’ll need more work in another 5-10 years, so we’ll repeat the process. The way I see it is that if you’re in your ‘forever home’ you’re going to have to take some money out to renovate every 10-15 years, and if you get to reap the benefits of the fruits of your labor, then it’s not the worst ever to improve the house you’re going to love in for the long term, even if the Dollars and cents fon’t Add up, it’s worth it because it’s the place you live, and you want what you want for your house.