Determine Your Value

• Contact your real estate agent for an estimate of your home's fair market value. Make sure that the estimate uses at least three comparable homes for which sales closed within 30 days of the estimate. Ask your lender what its cash-out loan-to-value ratios are and see if you'll have enough equity by multiplying your home's estimated value by the cash-out ratio. For example, if the maximum loan-to-value ratio for a cash-out refinance is 75 percent and your home is worth $300,000, your maximum loan is $225,000.
  
  

Estimate Your Payoffs and Fees

• After you determine your loan amount, you must subtract your current mortgage balance and any estimated loan costs to determine what your cash-out proceeds will be. Your mortgage payoffs are usually shown on your monthly statement, and you can use this for your estimate. Your loan costs are shown on the lender's good faith estimate, which is required of the lender at the time you make the loan application. Subtract the estimated mortgage payoff and loan costs from your new loan amount to determine your estimated cash-out proceeds.
  
  

Complete the Refinance

• The lender will request a real estate appraisal after you submit a refinancing application. It will also run your credit and check your income and assets. If these meet the underwriting criteria, the lender will fund the loan after you sign closing documents and any statutory rescission period passes. On an investment property, there is no rescission period. On an owner-occupied property, this waiting period is 3 days.
  
  

Disburse the Proceeds

• If you are using the cash-out proceeds to pay off liens such as tax liens or consumer debts to specifically reduce your expense ratios as part of underwriting conditions, those debts will probably have to be paid off directly through escrow. Otherwise, there is no restriction on how you can use your proceeds.