Try to Avoid PMI If You Can | Mortgage

by BradDavidson

If you have watched or read any news, you must know that it is tougher to get a home loan than it was two years ago. Even people with great credit find that they have trouble qualifying for a lower interest loan even they they get advertised a lot. And private mortgage insurance (PMI), is also a lot harder to get out of.

This product is actually insurance that will pay your loan company, and not the borrower, in case the loan goes bad. This reduces the risk to the mortgage company, and they often require the borrower to pay for this extra coverage. It is not intended to help the actual home owner in any way. But the borrower may have an extra few hundred dollars added to their mortgage bill each month.

Do you have twenty percent of your purchase price to put down on your new home purchase? If so, you probably won't be required to take out this extra coverage. If you purchase, for example, a two hundred thousand dollar home, and can put down forty thousand, you already have substantial equity. You are less risky to the mortgage company. But if you need a loan for the whole amount, you may need to make PMI payments that are one percent of the loan value per year. This means that $200K loan can cost you an extra two thousand dollars a year!

You can still find some ways to get out of this, even if you do not have a large down payment. These alternatives can be very important. You could probably think of a lot of other uses for your money besides helping to protect your mortgage company. You could use the money to get your loan paid off faster, for instance. You could also save it for an emergency or make home improvements that would increase its value. Almost any use seems better to me than spending it to cover your lender.

Consider an example of one way to cut out this cost. This consists of getting your lender pay the premium. They may raise your interest rate slightly if they agree to this. It is called Lender Paid PMI (LPPMI).

Let us say you have a 30 year fixed loan with a $15k balance and an interest rate of 5 1/2 percent. Your payment for the interest and princicpal would be about $850. In this case, the lender pays the premium in return for a little higher interest rate.

Consider this same deal if you pay for the coverage. Let us say that your interest rate would be a little lower, like about five percent. You will still have paymets that were about nine hundred and sixty dollars a month. Your monthly bill would be over one hundred dollars a month more.

Remember that this hundred bucks covers your loan company, and it does not cover you. This seems a fair deal to me. Compensate them a little more, but let them pay the premiums!

Not all lenders will make this deal for all borrowers though. Another option is to look into single premium policies. Since they are paid with one upfront payment, you can usually get a discount. You may also be able to roll this amount into your loan, which could still cost less than actually paying the higher price for monthly premiums.

A couple of years ago, it was very possible to avoid PMI without making a down payment. People took out an eighty percent loan from one company. They borrowed twenty percent from another lender. This meant they could get into a house without a down payment, and that they could avoid PMI. These are a lot tougher to find these days with tougher lending rules.

The simplest way to avoid paying PMI is to have a 20% down payment. If you do not have it, it may still make sense to go ahead with your purchase. But you may want to consider this decision. If you do not have the down payment for a $250,000 home, it might be a better idea to find a $150,000 home or just keep renting until you have more money saved. You will have a lot of costs associated with your new home purchase, and you want to make sure you have enough of a budget to cover everything.

DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice.

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