Spring Is a Popular Time to Renovate. But Here's Why You May Want to Skip Home Improvements This Year

At this time of the year, you'll commonly see a lot of homeowners working on their properties, or paying professionals to do that work for them. Spring is a popular time for renovations, and according to a survey by Today’s Homeowner conducted earlier this year, 90% of homeowners have improvement projects planned for 2023. 

You may have a number of projects you're hoping to tackle as well. And if you have the money in your savings account to pay for all of them, great. But if you need to borrow money to cover your home improvements, then you may want to hold off for one big reason.

Borrowing has gotten expensive

It's common to finance home improvement projects by taking out home equity or personal loans. But right now, you're generally looking at paying a higher rate of interest on a loan, even if you're a borrower with excellent credit.

The Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates for more than a year in an effort to cool inflation. That's driven the cost of borrowing way up. 

Now normally, borrowers with strong credit can lock in lower interest rates on loans. But even if your credit score is outstanding, you might end up unhappy with your loan options due to today's general borrowing environment.

In fact, the aforementioned survey found that homeowners are hesitant to borrow money for improvement projects due to interest rates being higher. As such, more people are looking at going the DIY route.

But that's not always feasible. If you're talking about a project that requires lots of tools and skills, doing it yourself may not be possible or wise. And the last thing you want to do is take on a home improvement project that could result in injury. 

Also, just because you're doing a project yourself doesn't mean you can pay for it outright. You might have the skills to remodel your own master bathroom. But even so, you'll still have to buy things like tiles, a vanity, a sink, and so forth. If you can't pay for those items outright, then your project could end up becoming very expensive when you factor in the higher cost of borrowing.

Waiting could really pay off

It's one thing to borrow money for a home repair. But it's another thing to borrow money to improve your home when that can technically wait. 

Replacing a failing roof is essential, so even if you have to take out a loan to do that, you should probably make it an immediate priority. But if you have a perfectly nice patio and you simply want to expand it and upgrade to nicer stone, that's the sort of thing that could easily wait.

No matter how you borrow money these days, you're looking at a higher interest rate. So if you're willing to postpone your plans to renovate for another year, you might end up being able to borrow far more affordably. And that's a decision that could impact your finances for many years.