Cancel PMI
If you borrowed more than 80% of your home’s value, chanced are you are paying private mortgage insurance or PMI. Mortgage companies require PMI on conventional loans when you do not have a down payment of at least 20 percent of the home’s appraised value.
Many Americans pay PMI and don’t even know there doing it. If you’ve had your loan for a few years, you might be eligible to have the costly PMI portion of your mortgage payment removed.
Before requesting to have PMI removed, you need to consider whether your mortgage balance is less than your home’s appraised value. There are several ways you can estimate this without paying $300 or more for a full real estate appraisal. You can check with your county tax assessor’s office to get the prices of recent home sales in your neighborhood or ZIP code. Compare these properties to your own .