Paying down principal won't help you qualify for a streamline, and it won't hurt, so do it for your own reasons or skip it. An FHA Streamline and a VA IRRRL are built to skip the appraisal, and equity isn't an eligibility factor for either. A VA IRRRL can be done with no equity at all, even underwater, and an FHA Streamline without an appraisal works off the original value, so your current loan-to-value simply doesn't enter the decision. Building extra equity ahead of time doesn't unlock a better streamline or a lower pricing tier the way it can on a standard refinance. What extra principal payments do change is the size of the loan you carry forward. Pay down more now and the balance you refinance later is smaller, which means a slightly smaller payment on the new loan. A fine outcome, just a general one rather than a streamline-specific edge. If the goal is being ready when rates make a streamline worthwhile, the more useful prep is keeping your payment history spotless, since these programs require a recent on-time record, and confirming your seasoning window under current FHA or VA rules, since those requirements can change. Nobody can promise where rates go, so a rate watch with a realistic target beats trying to time it by hand.