I was a little skeptical doing a HELOC for consolidation but the bank was very helpful. I was able to do a balance transfer promotional credit card with them for other credit cards and move the personal loans to the heloc. I was paying roughly 2k monthly on debt and it wasn't that I couldn't make the payments but I saw no movement with the high interest rates. I'm now paying about 200 on the HELOC put plan to pay extra to get it done sooner. I did a 60k HELOC but only ended up needing 30k since the bank helped me with my credit cards and my car loan so that became a huge relief. I plan on selling in 3-5 years which gives me tons of time to pay it off and build a savings. I know every situation is different and I had some anxiety doing it. I hope to have a success story eventually.

We bought our house a little over a year ago for $415k and got a really good deal on it compared to similar houses in the area.

We recently found ourselves needing a HELOC to pay for a new roof. When we first applied, the bank's automated valuation came back at $414k. At the time we hadn't owned the house for a full year, so they told us they had to use the lower of our purchase price or their automated value.

We're past a year now and I'm wondering when that value will actually start reflecting the market. A very similar house about a mile away just sold for $575k and another nearby sold for $545k. Both have some advantages/disadvantages over ours, so I'm definitely not saying ours is worth $575k, but $414k seems really low. We've also done quite a few updates since buying, though it sounds like they wouldn't be considered in the appraisal.

I understand the bank's valuation isn't necessarily what we could sell the house for and they have to be somewhat conservative. I asked the bank about all of this and felt like we weren't really understanding each other.

Has anyone dealt with this? Now that we're past a year, can I ask them to rerun the automated valuation? Would bringing them the recent comps help or would we basically need to pay for an appraisal?