Pre-Property Appraisals

[KANE WHITESIDE]

Hi I am working on getting a couple loans for some rental properties and some of the lenders are needing appraisals done on the home which I will have to pay for out of pocket. I am trying to be super carful with these deals and cant really afford to pay out for an appraisal and then the property fall short of the loan criteria which intern leaves me in the hole and no loan.   I was wondering if anyone could give me any suggestions on how I might fine tune my ability to predict the properties value before the official appraisal outside of just pulling comps?