Great post.....informative and should be placed for others to maintain.

While most of the agents in my district seem to complain about the very issue you're addressing, I seem to be plagued with the exact opposite problem.  It seems that I'm CONSTANTLY having to argue with lenders and homeowners about wanting to over insure their homes.  The circumstances usually involve a market value in one of our surrounding expensive counties that includes quite a few acres of land.  The most blatant example was that I was once asked to insure a double wide mobile home for $250k JUST because that was what they were paying for the entire property.  My company does give us a little wiggle room so when I have someone who is really insistent that the replacement cost needs to be higher I'd love to have another online resource to just double check what we're coming up with.  Are you aware of such a tool?  Thanks for your help....

Hi Becky, im not sure of any public tool that you could share with mortgage brokers.  One trick i usually do is set up a policy for the client at whatever amount the lender needs.  And then after the loan closes, contact the insured and endorse the policy to what is really appropriate.   Rarely wil anyone from a bank contact me to change the insurance amount after the loan closes.  (shhhhhh)

OK.  I think my main discomfort is that especially with high value houses, I'd love to have one more cost estimator to use to double check my main one.  My purpose wasn't to really share it with the lenders, more to double check just in case our company cost estimator didn't get detailed enough to evaluate a more customized house.  If ever you hear of such a thing, or any site that talks about average cost per square foot in a given zip code or area please let me know!  Thanks!!