Down Payment and PMI

DH and I are searching for a home - and based on what we've been looking at we'll probably be putting less than 20% down. Has anyone put less than 20% on a house? If so, were you forced to pay PMI? Can you tell me about your good/bad/otherwise experiences? TIA!

Re: Down Payment and PMI

We got an FHA loan and only put down 3.5%. We had to pay an upfront mortgage insurance charge of 1%, plus we'll pay PMI until we have 20% equity in the home. I've heard this takes approx 5 years, but it is based on how much your home appreciates and how much you have paid towards principal. Our PMI payment is $225/mo. It's def a bummer, but 20% down plus closing costs was not a reality for us.

Re: Down Payment and PMI

I put down 10% and have a PMI of $154/month. My broker said it wasn't a big deal, just get the house reappraised after 6 months and the bank will remove it. Yea not that easy...I bought in 2009 and about 3 months later the market dropped significantly so 3 years later I still have PMI. I hate it. I could use the extra money not to mention that I have to pay for an appraisal again. If you're able to swing it try and put down the 20%.

Re: Down Payment and PMI

We paid PMI for about the first year after putting down less than 5%, I can't remember the exact percent. Thankfully we bought a short sale and were able to reappraise aver 20% after about a year and got rid of the PMI.

Re: Down Payment and PMI

we put 10% down on our coop and had to pay like 90 bucks a month PMI. I HATED paying PMI and it is not so easy to get rid of. we had to pay to have an appraisal done and some other nonsense, had to wait 2 years from start of mortgage. we were determined to put 20% down on our house. PMI is such a waste of money , it goes toward nothing and you can't even write it off

Re: Down Payment and PMI

Thanks so much for the info! Your responses are all pretty much in line with what we thought about it - but it helps to hear from people who have actually been through it. We are going to try to get as close to 20% as possible..but at the same time I don't want it to stop us if we find a home that is good for us. Fingers crossed for it to work out!

Re: Down Payment and PMI

Posted by JK61310

Thanks so much for the info! Your responses are all pretty much in line with what we thought about it - but it helps to hear from people who have actually been through it. We are going to try to get as close to 20% as possible..but at the same time I don't want it to stop us if we find a home that is good for us. Fingers crossed for it to work out!

Re: Down Payment and PMI

We put 17% down and had to pay PMI. However, we closed in October and used our tax returns the following year (April) to put towards the principal and got the PMI off. We didn't need a new appraisal since we had owned the house for less than a year. I'm happy we're not paying that extra $120 a month.

Re: Down Payment and PMI

Thank you both for the latest posts. It all really helps as we consider our options! I guess it will work out one way or the other - if we find a dream home we deal with the PMI and if we don't we continue to save while we search!