Private Mortgage Insurance is a home-buying aid that nearly anyone can use. It is insurance that protects the lender if the buyer defaults on the loan. It is generally required for people who cannot get a 20% down payment. Buyers can purchase a home with as little as 3-5% down using PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance). With home prices climbing, many people have difficulty getting the 20% down payment; and studies have shown that buyers who put down less than 20% are more likely to default on the loan. Thus the PMI is useful to the lender in securing the loan, and buyers can buy sooner because they don't have to wait for years while they accumulate an acceptable down payment.
When you purchase a home with PMI, the lender secures the policy for you. You pay for the PMI at closing or, most often, you pay a monthly fee with the monthly payment. If you default on the loan, the lender receives the difference between the down payment you made and 20% of the loan amount. PMI payments can be considerable, so it is best to avoid using private mortgage insurance if possible.
Once the loan is paid down to 80% of the property value, most lenders would drop PMI coverage if buyers had a good payment history and requested to drop it. However, most consumers were not aware of this possibility and had to keep track of their loan balances. People often failed to request the change, and they paid unnecessary insurance payments for years. New laws passed in 1998 have made lenders and buyers equally responsible for how long the PMI is carried on a loan so that this situation is no longer a problem. When a loan is paid down to 78% of the value and if the buyer is current on the loan, the lender must automatically terminate the PMI.
Private Mortgage Insurance is a helpful option to protect lenders and to help people get into homes without having to wait while a large down payment is accumulated.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_Kandell
Different Types of Mortgage Insurance
There are different kinds of mortgage insurance. Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) is insurance that protects the lender - the mortgage company. Many home buyers cannot afford to make the traditional 20% down payment on a home. They can make SOME down payment, but they don't have and can't get the money necessary to make a 20% down payment. With less than a 20% down payment, the lender is taking a larger risk. PMI is their guarantee that they won't lose money. The buyer pays the monthly premiums for PMI.
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Veterans Administration (VA) are both governmental entities that guarantee mortgages. Borrowers must meet certain requirements in order to qualify for an FHA or VA guaranteed loan.
Basically, mortgage insurance works like this. Let's say that you want to buy a home that sells for $264,000 - that was the average price of a home in the U.S. in October 2007. A 20% down payment would be $52,000. Not many people can come up with that much cash all at one time. If you can make a down payment of, say, $15,000, a private mortgage insurance policy will be written to insure the balance of the usual down payment, and the premiums will be added to the monthly payment.
Many people do not realize that the PMI policy can be canceled after the mortgage has been reduced and/or the home has appreciated in value.
In the past, buyers were not informed that mortgage insurance could be canceled when the loan-to-value ratio decreased to a certain point - usually 78%. The Homeowner's Protection Act of 1998 made it mandatory for companies to inform buyers each year about the terms and status of their mortgage insurance and give them the option to cancel when it was no longer required by law.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Milos_Pesic
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