<p>Mom-</p>
<p>As I understand it, you’re to put YOUR estimate of the current value of your home into the Profile. Not what a calculator says, not what you’d like to get, but what you can get today of you had to sell the house. Current fair market value.</p>
<p>That less the mortgage will give them your equity in the home. They use the Federal Housing Index Multiplier (inputting your date of purchase and purchase price) to check your estimate and make sure it’s not too much of a lowball. The data in the Multiplier is at least 7 years old.</p>
<p>Try it yourself and see what it comes up with, but then use YOUR estimate (remembering that there are many factors that can affect the value of a home) and be prepared to justify your estimate:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.finaid.org/calculators/federalhousing.phtml[/url]”>http://www.finaid.org/calculators/federalhousing.phtml</a></p>
<p>Remember that this is just for the Institutional Methodology – Federal Methodology doesn’t consider home equity.</p>