Refinancing your mortgage? Here’s why a professional home appraisal is step one + MORE Mar 28th

U.S. mortgage rates climbed for a third straight week, pushing home-financing costs to the highest since October and dealing a blow to both purchasing and refinancing activity.

Before you refinance your mortgage, it’s important to know your home’s true value. A professional home appraisal gives you an accurate picture of the value of your property, helping you make smarter financial decisions from lowering your monthly payments to accessing equity to evaluating your refinancing options.

With home values softening in many markets and the mortgage landscape remaining competitive, homeowners often wonder whether they should stick with their current lender or refinance for better terms. Before comparing rates or switching banks, there’s one critical step that most homeowners overlook: finding out what their home is actually worth today.

A professional appraisal provides a reliable, unbiased estimate of your home’s current market value. This can give you stronger negotiating power, a clearer sense of the equity you can access, and the insight to determine whether refinancing makes financial sense at all.

Why a professional appraisal matters for refinancing 

When you refinance, lenders pay close attention to your loan-to-value ratio (LTV), which refers to the percentage of your mortgage compared to your home’s current market value…

If lower interest rates can’t push homebuyers off the sidelines, perhaps a year’s worth of free borrowing costs will.

As many as 150,000 Canadian borrowers will have trouble refinancing their mortgages over the next two years as they face a combination of declining home values and higher interest rates, according to the country’s top banking regulator.