[alekhine8]

If there was some product that I could pay $2,000 or so a year to lock in my gains on my house, I would consider it. But there isn't, and there's nothing even remotely close.

There is no way that buying puts on homebuilding stocks or any other sector is going to be a good hedge. Nor would any sort of interest rate plays.

You can refinance and take some of it in cash, but you still have to pay it back. Unless you have a business plan or investing strategy to beat your tax-effective interest costs by several percentage points, I wouldn't bother. The last thing you want is to lose money on some investments and see a correction/bubble/crash in the real estate market and have no equity left in your house.