Had something similar happen when we refinanced a couple years ago. We had a small deposit from my brother reimbursing me for concert tickets—literall...

Yeah, upgrades are tricky like that. When I refinanced to drop PMI, it wasn't the new deck or updated bathroom that helped—it was purely the market pu...

Good points here. I've had mixed luck myself—one appraisal came in higher than expected, letting me drop PMI early, but another time it fell short des...

Couldn't agree more with this. Learned the hard way myself when our roof decided to spring a leak right after we'd tapped into equity for some renovat...