Hi Zippy! I'm also in Ballard (I've been stalking your move out of Seattle thread and agree with everyone about you needing a HELOC). Anywho, my husband and I did a HELOC on our old house last year (which we just recently sold) through Bank of America. I typically wouldn't go through the big banks, but my sister in law works there and so I gave them a chance and found that we actually got a great deal through them. The loan costs were low to non-existent. I'd have to look it up again to be verify if we paid anything, but when we bought our new house we ended up using BOA again and they covered all our points - cheapest mortgage I've ever obtained! - and the HELOC was similar. They used an online tool to value our house. We argued that the house was actually worth more, and so they sent someone by for a quick appraisal at no cost to us (we were asking for more money than we could have gotten unless they reevaluated) but it sounds like you have enough equity that you could probably just get by with the online tool and not have to worry about the appraisal. PM me if you'd like contact info for our loan officer!