Before and After: a RenoFi-powered backyard in California

Original Home

• Location: Oceanside, CA
• Built in 2014
• Roughly 2,700 sq. ft.
• 4 beds, 3 baths
• Total renovation cost: $43,000

Original value:

$765,000

The Renovation

• New patio and patio cover
• Fresh landscaping
• Irrigation installation
• Fire pit ready
• After renovation value: $805,000
• Renovation ROI: 93%

After renovation value:

$805,000

When Manuel and his wife Michelle initially moved into their home in Oceanside, California, they had no qualms about their outdoor area. It wasn’t their dream backyard, but it was certainly their dream home in a great location. A backyard makeover wasn’t at the top of their to-do list.

But when they decided to have a baby, having a usable backyard became much more important.

“We wanted to get a backyard before we had the baby,” said Manuel. “It’s definitely one of the things that my wife wanted done.”

The Project

Before their backyard transformation, the yard was mostly dirt - with a small rectangle piece of grass. And that patch of grass itself was mostly weeds, according to Manuel.

They had done some planting along the sides of the yard, but that wasn’t enough to make the space usable.

“It was nothing to talk about,” said Manuel. “You couldn’t walk barefoot outside at all because of the rocks, dirt and weeds.”

Michelle and Manuel wanted a backyard that their future child could play in, that family and friends could even gather in.

Financing

So, they decided to get some estimates from contractors, and that’s when they realized that the project would be expensive.

The estimate that they went with ended up being around $43,000 for the entire project, which meant they needed some sort of financing option to fund their new backyard.

Their contractor came up with a plan for landscaping, irrigation, a patio, and even a new patio cover. Manuel and his wife loved the new yard idea, so they decided to find a loan that could make it happen.

Manuel began looking into different types of home equity loans, but none offered enough to fund the renovation that they wanted. Like many other homeowners that look at RenoFi Loans, Manuel and Michelle moved into the home quite recently (in 2018), so they hadn’t built up enough home equity to use a traditional home equity loan.

“I ended up looking up home renovation loans, and I came across RenoFi through a Google search,” said Manuel. “We also considered a personal loan, but we were never happy with the interest rates.”

Once realizing that RenoFi could offer them much more borrowing power, Manuel was hooked. A RenoFi Loan allowed them to complete every aspect of the project that they wanted.

The Results

Manuel went through the RenoFi Renovation Underwriting process, and was matched with Valley Strong Credit Union to provide a RenoFi Loan.

“RenoFi was really easy to work with, and it made the financing process really simple on our end,” said Manuel. “I’d recommend RenoFi to anyone in the same situation we had.”

Manuel and his wife are incredibly excited to use their newly renovated yard not only for their baby and dogs to play, but to entertain family and friends.

“Using it is the most exciting part. We can have people over and hang out outside,” said Manuel.

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