Renovation Advice

💬 General/Other

Ok buckle up this is going to be long and TIA for reading everything if you do. Not sure if this is the best place to post this but I figured I'd start. I bought my house a little over 3 years ago and it's been objectively fine, but the house was built in 1920 and it shows. When we inspected the house we noted some little things that would likely be a problem in the future but nothing insane, fast forward to maybe 6 months into owning the house and it's pretty clear there's a lot more issues than we thought there would be even with assuming something big would pop up. To keep it short the biggest thing is we need to replace the entire electrical system which is a huge expense in addition to some bathroom remodeling/plumping problems. There's a handful of other things but those are the two big expenses that affect our quality of life here. Now here's the problem, we don't have a ton of disposable income ($80K~ a year between the two of us) and we have little to no equity in the house, we weren't particularly house poor in the beginning but due to some changes in the house and my job we are now in that situation. We bought it with the bare minimum down on an FHA loan so the down payment didn't create any equity and we refinanced last year due to an issue with our escrow account (insurance problem) because it upped our mortgage almost $800 a month and that just wasn't feasible so we had to roll it back into our loan. My credit is so so, around 680 right now but it's going up. Currently things are manageable general cost wise but there's no wiggle room for us to get anything fixed. Most things can't be done a little bit at a time because of the way this place is built or it makes it unsafe if we split it up (we also have pets that we have to work around). Most of these issues we've been living around (and testing fate tbh) but it's getting to a point something really needs to be done. I'm roughly estimating at least $50k to fix the important things and ideally around $75k to fix other small things. I am good with money, I don't have a whole lot of excessive debt and I don't like to just reach for things all Willy nilly, but I am only 23 and I'm still pretty new to adulting in general let alone this and I don't want to dig myself a hole I can't get out of. I really don't know what other options are out there aside from a HELOC or cash out refinance which aren't options for us right now. Personal loans have also been on my radar but that extra payment isn't particularly feasible right now, and DIY is just a sad prayer because I'm already stretched thin with time and just physical health. I've been getting a lot of ads for an HEI and the Aven home improvement credit line but they seem predatory. An HEI specifically seems very predatory and I am unable to find much information about it, but it seems like it would fix our issues entirely and it wouldn't be something I needed to worry about until we finish out the 30 year term or sell the house (don't plan on doing). As far as the Aven card I kind of assume all cards that are advertised like that are predatory but I still can't find much information on it. We have considered selling but I genuinely don't think we would be able to sell the house as is at the price we would need to pay off the mortgage and/or give us enough money to buy another. I wanted to know if anyone had any other ideas/advice because I'm getting a little desperate for something. I'm in Georgia if that makes a difference at all.
TLDR: My house is stupid old and falling apart and I can't get a HELOC to fix it nor do I have enough disposable income to finance it myself.

Posted Sep 5, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

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