3 Ways to Finance Your Smart Home Improvements

When it comes to your house, these gadgets can vastly improve your day-to-day life through automation.

15:42 08 September 2022

Smart devices have become an extension of humans. When it comes to your house, these gadgets can vastly improve your day-to-day life through automation. Unfortunately, these great improvements come at a cost. Purchasing all the different devices needed for this project can get rather pricey, but this article will present a few ways to finance these expenses. 

 

Here are three ways to finance these home improvements: 

 

1. Personal Loan

An easy way to acquire the funds you need for your smart home system is to apply for a personal loan. The loans are available to anyone with a strong credit history who wants to borrow a reasonable amount of money. In addition, the versatility of this loan makes it a good option for upgrading a smart home - it often comes with no restrictions on its use.

 

If you are interested in choosing a personal loan, it’s ideal to find one with the lowest possible interest rate. Websites such as Better Compared help you to compare different loans to find the best option for you. 

 

1. Mortgage Refinance

Refinancing your mortgage is an unconventional but wise financial decision. When the interest rate on your mortgage has fallen below what it was when you bought your home, you can consider refinancing as a way to fund your home improvements. 

 

As a result, you take advantage of your equity (which is the difference between the value of your home and the remaining mortgage balance). In this case, you can take out a new mortgage with a lower balance than your current one and receive the difference in cash. Please note that it is generally required that you have at least 20% equity in your home to qualify for a cash-out refinance.

 

1. Savings 

As long as you make sure to not dip into your emergency fund, you can simply use your savings to buy the necessary improvements for your home. 

 

But what happens if you don’t have the money? You can try to maximize how much money you can put aside each month by creating challenges and sticking to short-term goals. Costs such as mortgage and utilities will always come first, alongside other priorities such as food. But if you are looking to cut down some costs, there are most likely some spendings that are not essential and can be disposed of - perhaps, buying new clothes each month, or eating out every day. Instead, you can direct these funds toward your home renovation. 

 

Unsure of what your budget should be?

To create a budget, you firstly need to know everything that you want to buy. Therefore, the first step is to prepare a list of control functions that you want to automate, and for each of these functions, all of the devices that you want to order based on your wishes - for instance, how many lightbulbs you would need. 

 

Secondly, make sure you can integrate all of these devices within the same assistant. Generally, each manufacturer has its own mobile application, which is not ideal. The solution to this is using automation platforms such as Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri or Google's Google Assistant, which coordinate the specific applications of the manufacturers. You can use these assistants on your mobile phone, or through smart speakers with voice control, if you wish - this will also impact your budget. 

 

Conclusion 

The first step to any successful home improvement project is to develop a good plan, one of the most important parts of which is to determine how much the project will cost and how it will be financed. Hopefully, this article has given you some good insight and you are now ready to start your improvements!