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Home improvement loans

Find and compare home improvement loans

  • Compare loans from a wide range of providers
  • Doesn’t harm your credit score
  • A small step towards Money Calm

Loans for home improvement

DIY and home improvements can be expensive – especially if you are remodelling a room or building an extension. Luckily, loans are available to help you cover the costs of the work you want to do.

A home improvement loan can be used as an up-front payment for changes you – or your chosen contractors – make to your house. For instance, you might want to install a new bathroom, fit a new kitchen, or add on an extension or a loft conversion.

But with so many loans and providers on the market, finding the deal that suits your needs can be daunting, which is where MoneySuperMarket comes in. We assess your circumstances and search the market for the right loan for you, so you can get on with the best bit: building your dream home. 

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What home improvement loans are available?

There are two main types of loan available, each of which is suitable for different sorts of work. Here’s what you need to know:

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Personal loans

Personal or unsecured loans normally let you borrow up to £25,000 without the need to put up any collateral. They often have slightly higher APR, and may be more suited to moderate projects like redecorating and redesigning your rooms, or perhaps installing a new kitchen.

Personal loans are less suited to major structural works, such as adding a conservatory or a loft conversion. These jobs tend to take a lot of money and time, and a sufficiently large unsecured loan may not be available.

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Secured loans

This type of loan normally allows borrowers to borrow larger amounts, making them a better candidate for larger home improvement Projects. This is because the loan is secured against collateral – usually your home.

Provided your credit score is fair or better, you’re likely to be lent a larger sum at a more attractive rate of interest if you ask to take out a secured loan. But beware – if you can’t pay it back you may lose your home.

How to compare home improvement loans with MoneySuperMarket

Find the right loan for you and see which rates you’ll be guaranteed to get.

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It doesn’t take long

Tell us a little about yourself, your finances and the loan you want

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We browse the market

We’ll search through loans from a wide range of lenders on the market

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Compare loans

You’ll be able to sort loans by the overall cost and the likelihood you’ll be accepted

Key considerations when choosing a home improvement loan

While taking out a loan can represent a step towards your goals, there are plenty of things it’s important consider before you make the application. This checklist should help:

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    How much do you need?

    The amount you need to borrow may determine whether you take out a secured or an unsecured loan, and whether you’ll have to put up collateral like your home

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    Are you eligible?

    Before you take out a loan, make sure you can meet the monthly repayments within the agreed term. Our loan calculator can help you work out what you can afford

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    Can you afford it?

    How much you can borrow will depend on your credit score, so it’s important to know where you stand. You check your score with our Credit Monitor tool

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    Have you considered the risks?

    If you take out a secured loan, you have to put up collateral – which will usually be your home. If you then default on your loan, you may lose your home

We compare offers from a wide range of lenders from across the market

We work with most of the big brands to help you borrow the money you need

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With a pre-approved loan, the deal you see is the deal you get

When you apply for a loan, it’s not always clear what deal you’ll be offered or whether you’ll be accepted. But when you’re pre-approved for a loan, you know the deal you see is the deal you’ll get – you’ll know where you stand, with information that will help you make the right choice.

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Apply with confidence

When you’re pre-approved, the loan amount, duration and interest rate are all confirmed

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Tailored to you

When you know what you’ll be able to borrow and how much it will cost, you can choose a loan that’s right for you

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You’re in safe hands

This helps protect your credit score as you’re less likely to be rejected when you apply

The type of loan you take out, whether it’s secured or unsecured, will depend on how could your credit history is and how much you need to borrow. 

Unsecured personal loans only allow you to borrow up to a certain amount without collateral, so they may be suited to small improvements. For major renovations, remodelling and extension work, however, a secured loan is probably the only way you’ll be able to borrow enough money.

A renovation loan – another name for a home improvement loan – can be a good idea if you know you can afford it. 

There are several reasons why you might want to borrow money for home improvement: you might want to spruce your home up before putting it on the market, or perhaps you just want to spread out the cost of an extension. 

Additional borrowing is one reason to remortgage your home. In this case, you borrow more money on your mortgage and increase the overall size of your debt.

You can then use these extra funds to pay for home improvements if your lender agrees. Lenders are not obliged to lend you more money, and they can refuse requests – some lenders do not agree to remortgaging for home improvements.

A home equity loan is another name for a secured loan which uses your home as collateral. Home equity loans are lent to people who already have a mortgage, and whose property has gone up in value since they took that mortgage up – meaning they now have positive equity.

A home equity loan is borrowed against the increased value of the equity that has built up in your home since you bought it. So if your home has fallen in value, you might have more difficulty finding one.

When looking for a loan, price comparison sites such as MoneySuperMarket are a good place to start, as we can help you compare deals from across the market.

All you have to do is provide us with information about you and your finances, and tell us how much money you’re looking for, and we’ll present you with a range of options to suit your circumstances and needs. MoneySuperMarket uses what’s known as a ‘soft search’, so you won’t harm your credit score by comparing loans.

MoneySuperMarket gives you lots of clever ways to save a lot, by doing very little.

  • Take control of your credit score by checking and improving it for free with Credit Monitor
  • Never overpay again with Energy Monitor, our energy monitoring service
  • Over 50 ways to Get Money Calm

So how do we make our money? In a nutshell, when you use us to buy a product, we get a reward from the company you’re buying from.

But you might have other questions. Do we provide access to all the companies operating in a given market? Do we have commercial relationships or ownership ties that might make us feature one company above another?

We commit to providing you with clear and informative answers on all points such as this, so we have gathered the relevant information on this page.

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Contact moneysupermarket.com at Moneysupermarket House, St David's Park, Ewloe, Flintshire, CH5 3UZ. © Moneysupermarket.com Ltd 2021

Following government advice, we have closed our offices in response to Covid-19. If you have submitted a subject access request (SAR) by post, then please be aware there may be a delay in processing your request. Online requests are still being processed, however, and our contact centre is fully operational.

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