Have you seen zillow.com yet? If not it is a good place to go to get a rough feel for the current value of your home.
Now don’t overestimate this tool. It can at times be pretty far off in its estimates. But it does seem to end up in the right ballpark more often than not. It basically just uses public data on sales of homes and sales prices and then drops that into some proprietary formula to estimate home values. If you live out in the country it may not be able to locate your home but the site has pretty good coverage within most cities. Also, be sure to check the square footage it is basing the estimate on; if you have made additions to your home that Zillow wouldn’t know about that would increase your value.
The value of your home is a vitally important question when it comes to a refinance. As we noted above, if you are “upside down” on your home, or, owe more than it is currently worth, it reduces your refinance options quite a bit (unless you already have an FHA or VA loan).
As we have noted in the past, values on homes continue to drop so if you have equity left still and are in an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) or a loan with a 6.5% or higher rate now you can contact us in the sidebar to see about refinancing to a 30-year fixed rate loan while rates remain low.