What do you guys think?

I recently purchased a 4 bedroom 1 bath home in the Spokane WA area. At this time however only 2 of the bedrooms could legally be considered bedrooms because one does not have a closet and the other is in a basement with no egress window. My wife and I are thinking of adding a bathroom/walk-in closet on to the master bedroom since it is the room with currently no closet. My question for you guys is this a smart decision or not. It is going to run us about $20,000 when it is all said and done and that is with us doing most of the work ourselves. I am just wondering if that will be a smart decision because we bought this home for a good price as an investment that we hope on building equity in and then pulling it out for our first rental property. The bath is going to be really nice which makes the price a little higher. Any advice would be really helpful.

I’m a little confused about your exit strategy with this property. Are you planning to sell this property, and then buy a rental? Or is this property going to be your rental?

It sounds like you’re going to sell this property. Given the information that you have provided, I say go for it. A master bathroom would definitly make the house easier to sell. Be careful about making the bathroom too nice though. Know your area. Remember you’re not going to live there, it just needs to be as nice as the surrounding area in order to fetch a comperable sales price.

I agree with Travis. Adding a bathroom is one of the best ways to add value to your home. AND do not over improve. Like he said look at the trends of the neighborhood. Yes, a nicer bathroom will help sell your house, BUT there is a fine line that you can cross. for example, you don’t want to put granite counter tops in a 50k home, you know what I mean! Sounds like your on the right track. Depending on your layout, I would bring the wall in about 6 ft and divide the space into a bathroom and a walkin closet. A standard tub is 60" x 30,32", so the room only has to be as wide as the tub. There are many options. I am doing the same thing in a investment house for my wiife’s parents. Of course, it is a small house and in a low to mid income area. Just my 2 cents. good luck.

Weldon

I am currently living in this home and plan on selling it in about 10 years or so. My goal however is to build as much equity in the home as possible that way I can pull it out and use it to purchase a rental.

How would you guys finance an addition of this sort? I am thinking about either doing it in phases i.e. foundation, framing, interior, etc. using my own money or getting a second mortgage which I could afford to pay in addition to my first mortgage and doing it all at once. Which way do you think would be a wiser decision given my plan to build equity?

if you have 10 years to do it, why not do it in phases and save on interest?

Anyone else have any advice on how to go about financing an addition of this sort?

if you want to finance it, the best way would prob be credit cards. you could use a card with a good balance transfer rate, like 2.9 until its paid off, or 0% for a year, and transfer it to another card when the 0% rate expires

Yes, putting the balance on a 0% credit card is cheap money, but keeping high balances on your credit card is abolutely detrimental to your credit score…

A few years back I doubled the SQ footage of my house. I was able to use a simple construction loan and rates were great then. For me personally, I would try to go the construction loan route, or simply a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit). You pay more for your money, but there’s no downside to your credit rating (if you pay on time of course).

acutally its good for your credit score, as long as you pay the cards down. and once theyre paid off, the bank will increase their credit limits :wink:

Yes, paying off your CC is great for your Credit Score, but it is not what you suggested. You recommended to carry a balance for a loan, then you suggested having multiple cards and moving the balance around. High amounts of revolving credit is also bad for your score. The only way to somewhat protect your credit score and have your method is to have very high limits and make sure your balance is less than half of the total amount allowable. Still risky to your credit score because if you go over or something happens that you can’t pay off, or switch cards to a lower rate, you’ll really get socked with ridiculous interest and fees. I agree with you that it is cheap $$, but it doesn’t come without risk.

having a heloc has the same effect on your credit score as a credit card, bc they are both revolving lines. as far as risk is concerned, credit cards arnt secured by your home, so if you miss some payments, you are much less likely to lose your home. and the payments on your credit cards may be slightly higher than an interest only payment, most of the payment will be principal, provided that you took advantage of great balance transfer rates. anyways, if you dont like credit cards for whatever reason, a heloc would be my second choice. make sure its a no closing cost heloc >:(

Instead of using your money to finance a bathroom in your personal residence, why not buy a rental and use the positive cash flow from the rental to pay for the bathroom?

Mike

Good point Mike. I never thought about that.

I really like that idea. I have been really looking at a home and thinking about picking it up as a rental. Do you think it should be a problem securing financing being that I just bought my personal residence in December? I have an excellent credit of about 760 and a decent amount of liquid assets as well.

I don’t think you’ll have a problem. I bought my first rental about a month after closing on my personal residence, there was no problems. And my credit score was around 650 at the time.

How did you finance your rental property? What down payment did you put?

Oh good point, I did put 20% down. Conventional financing. My appologies to the original poster for forgetting this detail previously.