I never finance, though i would if it was emergency work and I had to I suppose. Taking on a big project every year/every couple of years isn't unreasonable, everything doesn't need to be perfect now. I have older relatives who bought their seattle-area houses for $20k way back when, and when they sold them 4 or 5 decades later, made no money off them due to always taking out the equity. Some people live that way, I sure wouldn't. Of course there's a middle ground, but personally I think the instant gratification of being able to do something now isn't worth taking on extra debt for me. Yeah, interest rates are really low, and I feel like that sort of debt-service makes sense for a mortgage, but it doesn't make sense to use as a justification to just finance everything.