Avoid Private Mortgage Insurance Payments

As you have probably noticed, the mortgage market is very different than it was a couple of years ago. You may find that it is much tougher to get a loan, and it is really tougher to find a lower interest loan. PMI, or private mortgage insurance, is also tougher to avoid.

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.

If you have 20% of your purchase price to put down, you usually do not have to take out this coverage. The lender is assured that you already share the burden of home ownership with them, and they have less risk to worry about. So if you buy a $200,000 loan, and you have $40,000 to put down, you should not need to take out this extra policy. The minute you walk into your new home, you already have a share of it. But since policy rates can be one percent of your loan value a year, you may end up paying an extra $2,000 in payments if you need to take out a loan for the entire amount without a decent sized down payment.

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.

Lender paid PMI (PPPMI) is one way to reduce the cost. As the name implies, this gets your loan company to assume the premiums for this coverage. In return, they may raise your interest rates a little.

Consider this example. You have a one hundred and fifty thousand dollar mortgage for 30 years. It has a fixed interest rate of about 5.5%. You now have to pay about eight hundred and fifty dollars a month for your principal and interest.

Now let us look at this same loan, even if you got a little bit lower interest rate of right above five percent, but had to pay PMI. Your payment would be about $960 a month for interest, principal, and PMI!

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!

Paying for the policy with one large premium, right up front, could give you a big discount on rates. This cost could be rolled into the actual loan at closing too. Even though you are borrowing the money you have to pay, it could be cheaper than making monthly payments on it.

We used to hear a lot about 80/20 loans. These existed to help borrowers get into a home with 0 down payment, but also to avoid PMI. Since the first lender is only lending 80%, they were satisfied that the risk was lower. A year or two ago, these were very common. But with tougher lending rules now, they are hard to qualify for.

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.

We would also like to help you get lower homeowners insurance rates .

Mentions about us on the Web;

Find more articles about

Insurance

Avoid Private Mortgage Insurance Payments

Find more articles about

Search