I currently have an FHA loan through Wells Fargo that I closed on in January 2015. Home values have improved significantly in my area and I think I might be close to meeting the 78% equity requirement for the bank to remove the PMI.

My question is: I'll have to pay for an appraisal that the bank requires. I don't want to have to pay for an appraisal and then have the bank tell me that I don't meet the requirement. Is there a way I can get a good estimate on my home appraisal value before I pay for the bank's appraiser? Should I just have an agent pull comps from the MLS for me? Thanks for any advice.

Your PMI is permanent on that loan. Only way to get rid of it is refinancing into a conventional loan.

Our first loan from Wells Fargo would not remove PMI until we had the loan for 5 years, regardless of the increase in value. Rules may have changed since then, so call them to find out what exactly what is needed.

FHA has different rules for when the loan was created. so from year xx to yy you have these rules and aaa to bbb other rules apply. I need month and year of loan originated to say what rules apply. Even then it gets tricky.

But 2015? permanent

Yea, my recollection is that on FHA... PMI doesn't go away or it is on a fixed schedule at the very best (11 years?). I've never had FHA, but I remember reading about it.

"The FHA has actually created two different schemes for MIP (PMI). For loans on which the home buyer makes a down payment of 10% or more, annual MIP will cancel at either the end of the loan term, or after 11 years, whichever comes first, for loans with less than 10% down, the MIP continues for the life of the loan." Taken from my CE material. January 26, 2015 is the magic date at which these changes took effect.

Almost no one puts 10% down on FHA which is why I did not get in the weeds here. Only marginal credit buyers or first time buyers go FHA with a decent loan originator.

In 15 years I never had a FHA loan with 10% down