Your Customers Have $34 Trillion in Home Equity. Are You Leaving It on the Table?
American homeowners are sitting on $34.1 trillion in equity. That’s not a typo, and it’s not an abstraction. It’s wealth locked inside the walls of the homes your customers already own.
That equity is fueling a remodeling market that is projected to reach $518 billion by the end of 2026. And homeowners are using it: in 2025, 54% of renovation projects were paid for with a home equity loan or line of credit. But many contractors never bring up financing at all, and are losing business as a result. The money is there. The willingness is there. The conversation isn’t.
Adam Tucci is the owner of Benjamin Franklin Plumbing Triad, a plumbing, HVAC, and electrical business he’s run for about three years after nearly five years managing operations for a private-equity-backed trades company. He brings up financing on every job over $1,000.
Bob Bates is the owner of Penn Cove Construction. He’s a remodeling contractor and author with 15 years of experience who defers the money conversation to build trust first and credits that strategy with a 60% to 65% repeat client rate.
They differ on timing, but they agree on the point that matters: the financing conversation has to happen.
Your customers have the wealth but not the cash
Nearly 45% of mortgaged homes were classified as “equity rich” at the end of 2025, meaning outstanding loan balances were no more than half the home’s estimated market value. The average mortgage-holding homeowner holds roughly $302,000 in equity, about $195,000 of which is tappable.
But equity isn’t the same as cash in the bank. “Accessing that equity can be a challenge,” Tucci says. “It sometimes takes 30 days for someone to get access to that cash. For shorter jobs that are more emergency-type things, it’s in the back of their minds as a comfort, but not necessarily cash they have access to immediately.”
Bates sees the same gap from the remodeling side. He has a vinyl siding project right now with a 21- to 28-business-day lead time on materials. The homeowner is paying upfront for something that won’t arrive for weeks. Without a financing plan tied to a schedule, that timing mismatch erodes trust before the work even starts.
That timing gap is what contractor-offered financing fills in. Your customer might have $200,000 in equity, but if they need a repair done tomorrow or materials ordered next week, a 30-day HELOC application doesn’t help. The financing you offer at the point of estimate does.
Your move: Stop assuming your customers can’t afford the work. Most can. They just need a payment option that matches the timeline of the project, not the timeline of a bank.
Know when to bring up financing
The biggest mistake contractors make with financing isn’t the terms they offer or the lender they partner with. It’s when they bring it up. But “when” depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.
Tucci brings up financing as early as possible. “We bring it up as early as we can in the initial conversations with the customer, especially for larger ticket items,” he says. His team asks about the expected budget and funding sources before the estimate is written. “I don’t think that it ever does come across in a way that makes them uncomfortable,” Tucci says. He’s not asking them to apply for a loan. He’s asking how they’re planning to pay, the same way a kitchen designer might ask about a budget range before drawing up plans.
Bates prefers to wait. He uses the initial conversation to talk about what the client is trying to accomplish rather than jumping to costs. “Maybe only 5% to 7% of conversations are about trying to increase the dollar value of the home,” Bates says. “It’s usually about trying to create value for how they feel about the house.” When he does get to financing, he asks what clients are willing to invest in the project, of both their time and their money. That reframe gets people thinking about commitment rather than just writing a check. “Then the money conversation gets blended in and it becomes much more natural,” Bates says.
Both approaches work. Tucci’s is built for close rate on individual jobs. Bates’s is built for repeat business and multi-phase relationships. In 2025, 42% of NARI members saw increased demand for contracting projects over the past two years, and 57% reported larger project scopes. Bigger projects mean bigger price tags, which means the financing conversation matters more regardless of which approach to timing you take.
Your move: Pick the approach that fits your business. Service-based operations with one-time jobs should lead with financing early. Remodelers and GCs building long-term relationships can start with value and let the money conversation follow. Either way, it has to happen on every qualifying job.
Stop projecting your own feelings about debt
Tucci identifies a specific, common mistake: contractors who avoid offering financing because of their own relationship with debt. “Not offering financing at all because of some preconceived notion is a very common mistake amongst contractors,” he says. “Some contractors have a personal stigma against using financing. So, they think everyone else feels the same way, when not everyone has that same perspective.”
This is a close-rate problem more than a philosophical one. If you don’t offer financing, you have no way of knowing whether a financially sound decision could have been made for the customer. A customer who has the income and credit to handle $300 a month might still balk at writing a $15,000 check today. That doesn’t mean they can’t afford the project. It means there’s a better way to pay for it, and if you don’t show them that option, someone else will.
Bates argues the fix is financial literacy. Contractors who understand how HELOCs work, what current rates look like, and how valuations are trending come across as credible partners, not just people who swing hammers. “Contractors need to invest a bit of time, go through the process,” Bates says. He recommends starting with your own credit union and booking time with a loan officer to understand the customer experience from the other side.
Your move: Make financing part of your standard process. If you offer it to every customer on every qualifying job, your own assumptions about debt never enter the equation.
Make financing visible at every touchpoint
The financing conversation shouldn’t start when you present the estimate. It should start before you show up.
Tucci’s recommendation: put your best financing term on everything a customer touches. “Include financing options in all of your sales material, all of your quoting material,” he says. “Put it on all of your material that you hand over to customers.” Car dealerships have done this for decades. You don’t see a billboard for a $45,000 truck. You see a billboard for $499 a month. That’s not a trick, it’s a reframe that makes the purchase feel possible. Contractors can do the same thing with website banners, leave-behind materials, and even truck wraps.
Bates takes a lighter touch. His materials signal that financing is available without leading with a specific number. “You still need to build a lot of trust,” he says. For remodelers whose business depends on repeat clients, there’s a difference between showing you can help with financing and leading with a monthly payment before the relationship has started.
Where both approaches converge is the estimate itself. Tucci’s team shows two numbers on every quote: the total project cost and the monthly payment. “So for this project, it’ll be $100 a month if you would like to finance it, or $1,000 today, however you would like to pay it is fine,” he says. No pitch. The homeowner picks. Does it close more jobs? “When we can get people approved, yes, no question,” Tucci says. “It absolutely helps closing.”
When price is the sticking point, having financing options keeps the conversation going. Acorn Finance lets you show homeowners real monthly payment options, turning a $15,000 repair into a manageable number. You get paid upfront in full while the homeowner spreads payments over time.
Your move: Update your estimate template, website, and leave-behinds to include financing. Lead with a specific monthly payment or a simple “financing available” depending on your business model, but make sure it shows up before the customer ever sees the total. Sign up with Acorn Finance so you can show real options on the spot.
What contractors miss when they skip the money conversation
The most common result of avoiding financing discussions is more than a lost deal. It’s a lost relationship.
Bates has seen it repeatedly. Contractors who skip the money conversation leave clients unprepared for real costs and lead times. When those costs land as a surprise, the client feels betrayed. “People still feel their home is their castle,” Bates says. “If you keep people from dreaming, you lose the long-term relationship.” A homeowner who trusts you with a $15,000 bathroom remodel today might have a $30,000 kitchen renovation next year, but only if the first project’s finances felt manageable.
Tucci saw the flip side when a newly opened laundromat needed gas line repairs to run its dryers. Cash was tight. “We were able to get them financed that day and up and running the next day,” Tucci says. “The cost of not running that business was far greater.”
Build financing into your sales process
To improve your financing conversations, you need a process change and the discipline to follow it on every job.
Start with the estimate. Update your template to show two numbers on every quote over $1,000: the total project cost and the monthly payment amount. If you don’t have a financing partner yet, that’s step one. Bates goes further by including a pricing schedule tied to the scope of work so the client sees how money flows across the project, not just what the total is.
Then fix the materials. Add financing language to every customer-facing touchpoint. Lead with your most appealing term.
Then measure it. Start tracking your close rate on jobs where financing is offered versus where it isn’t. If the numbers improve, you have your answer. If they don’t, look at approval rates and adjust your financing partner or the terms you’re leading with.
The bottom line
Your customers have the equity. What they don’t always have is a way to use it on your timeline. Whether you lead with a monthly payment on the first call or build toward it through a value conversation, the financing discussion has to happen. Show it on every estimate, put it on every piece of material, and stop assuming your customers don’t want it.
Ready to close more of the projects you’re already quoting? Acorn Finance lets your customers compare multiple loan offers in minutes, so a $15,000 repair becomes a monthly payment they can say yes to. You get paid in full upfront. They get a payment they can manage. The project stays intact.
