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This site specializes in bringing you news and information about how to get a home improvement loan, but there are times when taking a loan for home improvements may not be a good idea either because your finances are unstable, you’re thinking about moving and don’t think you’d recover the cost or you’re saving up for something else. But if the roof is leaking or your furnace just went up or you’re in desperate need of some sort of repair or improvement on your home then you still have some choices.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Barter and Trade Exchanges

Barter Directly for Home Improvement Services

This is one of the most obvious ways you can arrange to have someone work on your home without actually paying the person or company cash. The barter itself would have to be agree upon ahead of time and it’s usually easiest to barter with smaller contracting companies or independent owners than trying to deal with large corporations. Depending on the size of the job you could trade just about anything you own from a computer to a pair of skis to a car or even a boat! And remember: you can also barter with services. You probably have a lot of skills and talents you don’t even know about. Some of those skills could serve you as well as having the cash in hand. I have a friend who builds websites on the side and he just moved in to a new house. When he was shopping around for someone to refinish his hardwood floors he found a guy who needed a website. So he made a trade: two rooms of floor refinishing for one basic website. Both parties ended up happy!

Barter Indirectly for Home Improvement Services

You don’t have to just work out a deal with the contractor. Though less common, there are cases where you can indirectly barter with services or products involving a third party. There are some companies that offer this, but more often than not you can sometimes barter for home improvement services by just knowing lots of people. Indirectly bartering for home improvements and services occurs more often in tight-knit neighborhoods or even among family members.

Use an Online Bartering Service

With the economic downturn affecting people from every walk of life, more and more companies and small businesses are accepting the bartering of goods and services as an acceptable means of payment, especially for specialized services like medical bills, auto repairs and home repairs. There are many different online bartering services you can use to arrange two and three way bartering agreements fairly easily. In most cases you’ll want to find someone local to barter with and these services can help you. The SwapRight bartering service allows you to post what you are willing to offer as well as what need in return and the BarterQuest services allows you to do the same. Both of these services are completely free.

Work For The Contractor

This is a form of direct bartering, but it’s a little more formal. My cousin needed new windows in his home a few years ago, so he worked out a deal with local window company that he would help the company on Saturdays during the busy summer months in exchange for having a certain number of windows installed at his home for free. He learned on the job and now actually works for the guy every summer just to make some extra cash!

Neighborhood Loans for Home Improvement

These types of loans aren’t common, though there are many different ways you could look at a neighbor-to-neighbor home improvement loan. Again, this occurs more in communities where everyone knows each other, but if an elderly person in the neighborhood needs something done I’ve read about neighbors getting together and pitching in with their time and money. Fixing up a house that’s fallen on tough times can be incredibly helpful to the homeowner, but can also boost the value of the other homes in the area with the increased curb appeal.

These are just some of the ways you can “pay” for a home improvement without really paying for it with cash. If you find the right contractor or handyman you can often get some amazing work done on your home for a fraction of the cost of what it might normally cost.