Question about refinance vs. home equity vs. builders loan for major work.

[woodsprite]

4. Yeah. I've been researching cash out mortgages as well as straight refi w/ addl loan.

Our development has increased by over 1/3rd - even in these markets. Also, it looked like we could still keep our term (20 yrs left) and monthly payments the same. It does look like we could do better on the rate no matter what (we're at 6.75 currently). Trying to identify some places to talk about options to people. With the banking bailouts, I'm wondering who would be the safest to deal with, but we haven't heard anything bad about our original lender, so we'll start there first. Also, they're holding a portion of the ins checks in escrow. Don't know what monkey wrench would get thrown in the mix if we wanted to refi with a different entity at this point.

Spent some time this weekend trying to figure out exactly how much extra we would need to do the major type work we can't do ourselves.

Thanks for pointing me in the right directions. I hate banking stuff, but hubby just kinda shuts down when any figures get to be over 4 or 5 digits, whether its car, house, college, etc.