Last spring I walked through a 1960s ranch in Cherrywood with a seller who’d already talked to her bank about a home equity loan. She had a list: new kitchen, master bath remodel, fresh paint throughout, updated landscaping. Her contractor had quoted her somewhere around $78,000. She wanted to know if it would push her sale price up enough to make it worth it.

I told her the truth, which is that I’m not a market analyst and I can’t guarantee what a buyer will pay. But I’ve bought and sold enough houses in Austin, Houston, and the Fort Worth suburbs to have a pretty clear sense of when pulling equity before a sale makes you money and when it just makes you feel better about the house on the way out the door.

There’s a real difference between those two things.

The Loan Itself Is Not Free Money

A home equity loan against a Texas property — you can generally borrow up to 80% of your home’s appraised value minus what you still owe, which is how it works under Texas law. Rates as of recent data have been sitting somewhere in the 8–9% range for a fixed home equity loan, depending on your credit and lender. That’s not nothing.

If you’re planning to sell in the next six to twelve months, you’re paying interest on borrowed money during your renovation, during your listing period, and through closing. Then the loan gets paid off from proceeds. So every dollar you borrow costs you more than a dollar by the time it’s done.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It means you should be very cold-eyed about which repairs genuinely move the needle for buyers in your specific zip code.

What Actually Gets You Money Back in Central Austin (and What Doesn’t)

I’ll speak to what I’ve personally watched in this market over the last few years, because I can’t speak for everywhere.

Repairs and updates that have consistently translated to real return around here:

  • HVAC replacement or certification. Buyers in East Austin and the 78702 and 78721 zip codes will walk away from an old system faster than almost anything. A new unit runs somewhere around $6,000–$12,000 installed, give or take, and it removes a major negotiating chip from the buyer’s hands.
  • Roof work. Same logic. If you’ve got a roof with five years left on it, buyers and their agents know it. A full replacement might cost $15,000–$22,000 on a typical bungalow, and it will show up in your offer count.
  • Foundation repairs with a transferable warranty. I wouldn’t buy on a block off Rosewood without a foundation inspection, and neither will most buyers. If you already have a problem, fixing it and getting it warranted is usually worth doing before you list.
  • Fresh interior paint — not necessarily throughout, but the main living areas and anywhere that looks dated or dingy. This is relatively cheap and buyers respond to it emotionally even when they think they’re being rational.

Things that tend not to pay off the way sellers hope:

  • Full kitchen remodels. Buyers will appreciate a beautiful kitchen, but they have their own opinions about countertops and cabinet pulls, and they’re not going to pay you dollar for dollar for your taste. I’ve seen sellers spend $40,000 on a kitchen in a house that sold for $15,000 more than comparable unremodeled homes on the same street.
  • Master bath overhauls. Again, personal preference is a big factor. Cosmetic updates — a new vanity, fixtures, regrouting the tile — make more sense than gutting the whole thing.
  • Landscaping beyond basic cleanup. Curb appeal matters. A mowed lawn, trimmed beds, and a painted front door matter. An elaborate planted landscape with an irrigation overhaul probably doesn’t pay back.

The Disclosure Question Comes Up Here Too

One thing sellers sometimes don’t think about: if you’re doing significant work on a property before listing, you may be creating new disclosure obligations — or resolving old ones. If you’re repairing foundation drainage issues, for instance, or replacing a water heater that’s been problematic, that history needs to be documented. When to use the seller’s disclosure about groundwater is something worth reviewing if your repairs touch anything related to drainage, flooding history, or water intrusion.

Getting the repair done doesn’t erase the disclosure — it gives you something to disclose along with the resolution.

Running the Math Before You Sign Anything

Here’s the framework I’d use before agreeing to a home equity loan for pre-sale repairs:

  1. Get a comparative market analysis — not to find out what your house is worth now, but to understand what the top-of-market, move-in-ready version of your house has actually sold for in the last ninety days.
  2. Identify the gap. If your house is likely worth $420,000 as-is and comps for fully updated versions are closing around $460,000, you have roughly $40,000 of upside to work with — and you need your repairs to cost less than that after loan interest and closing costs.
  3. Have a contractor you trust — not one with a stake in you doing all the work — give you an honest read on which repairs are visible and material to a buyer versus which ones are just you feeling like the house should be nicer.
  4. Talk to your title company or a real estate attorney about the timing. Texas has specific rules around home equity loans, and there are waiting periods and documentation requirements you’ll want to plan around so you’re not scrambling at closing.

The seller in Cherrywood, by the way, ended up doing the HVAC, the roof, and interior paint only. She skipped the kitchen and bath. Her house went under contract in eleven days. I don’t know exactly what she would have gotten with the full renovation, but I know she didn’t have to.

One More Thing Worth Thinking About

If you’re watching mortgage rates and wondering how your buyer pool is going to look by the time you list — that affects your calculus here too. A smaller pool of qualified buyers means less competition, which can mean less room for your renovation premium to materialize. Why mortgage rates won’t drop even when the Fed holds is worth a read if you’re trying to time this.

The practical next step: before you call your bank, call a contractor and an agent — not for sales pitches, but for honest answers to one question each. The contractor’s question is “what needs to be fixed versus what would just look nicer?” The agent’s question is “what are buyers in my specific neighborhood actually negotiating over right now?” Those two answers will tell you more than any renovation ROI calculator you’ll find online.