If you want to get an idea of values for homes of the same type in the neighborhood, talk to a local real estate agent or two. RE agents will do a competitive price analysis, and look at comps in your area. Be honest with the agents, you are not planning on selling your house now, but you'll certainly recommend the agent to friends and keep them in mind when the time comes for you to sell or buy property. At least you will be prepared before you start the re-fi process. If your current mortgage is not less than 80% of the value of your home, I probably wouldn't even start a re-fi.

Hi CK, This is so frustrating. Been working on this since mid-December. Got good faith estimates from 3 sources. ... and you are doing so because... (wait, don't tell me...) you are thinking that these GFEs are somehow actually meaningful, reliable, and valuable for something other than birdcage liner, right? Then rates went down a bit more (according to media) so got new estimates - rates down a bit, but closing costs up. Trying to time the financial markets by listening to journalists is complete and utter insanity. One went from no origination fee to now charging one. How do you know what you'll actually be charged at closing. Find an honest, competent financial professional you trust... and simply ask. What is a good faith estimate? A non-binding preliminary guesstimation of approximate rates and fees based on loose parameters known at the time is is prepared. Do the rates somehow tie to the origination fee? Sure... you probably missed my re-posting of recent. Check it out here; "" An Insider's View of Refinancing (the 2009 remix ;~) If they go down, are lenders forced to charge it to get the lower rate? Rates & Fees are linked, like a teeter-totter. I also don't like to be rushed, so when someone calls at 4:00pm & says you have until 4:01pm (an exaggeration but not by much) to lock the rate, my natural instinct is to back away. Good instinct... a BETTER instinct would be to shop your professional instead of the commodity... else you're begging to be had. I don't want my frustration to come back & bite me, and I know no one on here has a crystal ball - except maybe Dave Donhoff - Its still in the shop, unfortunately... but how can you find out what this is really going to cost you & what is a good rate today? All you hear is that rates are going down - but not so today? The answer is my ancient, shop-worn rant; Choose your provider according to preliminary "quotes," And you've simply chosen the most successful Liar. Choose according to character quality, competitiveness, honesty, and your personal assessment, And you will set yourself up for the better Experience AND the better bottom line pricing!© Cheers, Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner Here is a link that might be useful: An Insider's View of Refinancing (the 2009 remix ;~)

We just finished doing this and encountered the same problem. In our case the bank (a small credit union) was willing to expand the area from which they drew the comps to pick up enough....but for us that meant that the house appraised well below even our worst case scenario since expanding that boundary picked up the edge of a neighborhood on the other side of the freeway that's been very badly hit by the downturn. (Of course when we asked the *county* to redo their appraisal in light of this, they rightly pointed out that the comps the bank used weren't actually in our neighborhood, and based on the one comp that was, the value of our house was substantially higher than its appraisal, and we would be taxed accordingly....figures! ;) We were fortunate to have enough equity in the house that we were able to move forward anyway by paying a small amount to keep the LTV at 80%, but it was definitely frustrating. Since we plan to stay in the house whatever happens to the value and we were bringing the interest rate down 1.25 percent which yielded pretty sizable savings in our monthly costs, it still seemed a worthwhile investment. (Also, there were a lot of sunk costs involved since we didn't get the appraisal figure till after we'd paid most of the fees....nonrefundable of course!) I don't think the bank would have accepted older comps, though, given the current trends.

Things may vary from state to state but potential borrowers back out of closings all the time. If you were not rediclosed to with a different rate & fees, that's a big problem. As far as the credit card payoff - this may have been a condition of loan approval then you don't have a choice other than not going thru with the loan. Seems like your loan officer/broker didn't do a very good job of figuring your loan amount to include loan payoffs and closing costs. Where I am, when a buyer walks, they are only responsible for the appraisal fee which is often collected from them up front for this reason. Good luck.