Most Canadians use savings and unsecured loans for financing their home renovations

The recent poll by BNN Bloomberg shows that during the previous year, most Canadians (59%) have been using their own savings to finance their home renovations.

Meanwhile, only 2% of respondents noted that they funded their housing projects with the help of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). Traditional lines of credit were used in 11% of all the cases, and credit cards accounted for 7%. In addition to it, 2% received material help from relatives or friends.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 27% of homeowners had renovated their properties, and 20% are planning to do it in the nearest future.

A survey by Simply Group, conducted earlier this year, showed similar results, pointing that homeowners still tend to focus on renovations with applications going up by 30% in the second quarter compared to the first one.

“Canadians started spending a lot of time at home, and their growing disposable income provided an opportunity to begin home renovation projects,” – noted Lawrence Krimker, CEO of Simply Group. “Our data shows that Canadians keep prioritizing their home improvement projects, and we believe this tendency will continue until the end of 2021.”

Unsecured lines of credit and credit cards are generally much more expensive than home equity lines of credit, so if you have a big renovation project in your mind and don’t have enough cash consider using home equity and save on interest costs and monthly payments.