There have big huge changes in our lending environment over the last several months. It is harder to qualify for a home loan, and it is really harder to get a low interest loan. It is also harder to avoid Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) payments.
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.
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).
Take the example of a $150,000 mortgage which is fixed for thirty years at about five point five percent. Your payments should be about $850. You are only paying for the loan balance and interest.
But if you had to pay for PMI, even if your interest was about 5.1%, your payment would be over $100 a month more! This is for the same loan. The only difference is that in one case, you have to pay for the policy. In the other case, the mortgage company will raise your interest rate a little, but pay the 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!
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.
Piggy back loans were the traditional way to avoid private mortgage insurance. An example would be to get one loan to pay 80%, and then get a second loan to cover the other 20% which would have been your down payment. These used to be very popular, but are not as common these days since lenders have made it much harder to qualify without a true down payment.
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.
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