getting rid of PMI

[LoveTrains]

Hello - Has anyone gotten rid of PMI recently? I am just thinking about trying to get rid of mine. Our mortgage was bought by Chase. Do you jsut call up the 1800 number and start chatting them up about it? It looks like my house would need to appraise for $311K for my loan to be at 80% of the value (or less), the appraisal when we bought it was $287K three years ago. The house next door (pretty similar to mine) sold last year for $349K and a similar house across the street just went pending in less than a week at $369. These houses are all around 1935-1942, 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, with various degrees of updates to the interiors although the same basic floor plan. 

[secst26]

Lurker here. We recently dropped PMI this way. We were at about 85% and knew that house values in our area had increased, so we called our lender (BB&T) to ask how to do it. We had an option of either paying for an appraisal or a brokers price opinion. Since we were confident that our home value raised at least 30K, we decided to do the BPO since it was $300 less than the appraisal. An agent came and took photos of our home (inside and outside) and did a ridiculous resale comparison (all homes were 5+ miles from our house, some even in another school district) to come up with figure. Once the bank got that report directly from the agent, they automatically dropped PMI (surprised me, because I figured we'd have to put in writing what we wanted and expected to have to be more involved in process). It was super easy for us and saves us $115 per month.

[martini]

I just did a few weeks ago. I just had to write a letter to the bank asking for it to be removed. I thought they'd want to do an appraisal or there would be more hoops to jump through but they did it automatically. We were basing value on the original loan/appraisal value though, and I'm sure it varies by banks too. Good luck to you! Hope they drop it!

[xokell2]

Mar 20, 2016 15:57:31 GMT -5 martini said:

I just did a few weeks ago. I just had to write a letter to the bank asking for it to be removed. I thought they'd want to do an appraisal or there would be more hoops to jump through but they did it automatically. We were basing value on the original loan/appraisal value though, and I'm sure it varies by banks too. Good luck to you! Hope they drop it!

I sent my bank a letter last month and haven't heard anything. We'll be calling them next. It shouldn't have to be such a pain. 

[LoveTrains]

Thanks for the stories. I called to talk to someone and they are going to "open an inquiry" and get back to me. I'm happy to pay for an appraisal or BPO. We would save $130/month if we dropped it.

[hbomdiggity]

We did it last summer when we reached 80% of the original purchase price. They still required an appraisal to ensure value hadn't decreased (big LOL if you've seen my house selling posts).

Before then the bank wasn't willing to do it solely based on increased value. Instead we would have needed to show increase due to improvements with receipts and we'd have to be at 75%. We'd done renovation but it still seemed like a hassle. Since we were close to 80% we just waited it out.

[steph96]

For those of you who had an appraisal done to show the increase in value, did your property taxes go up?

[hbomdiggity]

steph96, no but my house has special taxes that are basically unrelated to a random appraisal.

[LoveTrains]

Mar 20, 2016 19:56:31 GMT -5 steph96 said:

For those of you who had an appraisal done to show the increase in value, did your property taxes go up?

Our city does a standard re-assessment every 3 years for EVERYONE, so this wouldn't affect it. 

[puppyluv]

Our lender would not do anything for us unless we refi'ed, even though our appraisal was higher than the purchase price. However when we refi'ed, we used the same lender, and they told us they would then use our previous appraisal which, luckily, we knew was more than our purchase price. That gave us our 20% to get rid of PMI.

This may be specific to the credit union we used though. They were very adamant that only the purchase price could only be used in the original loan but then the appraisal was good enough the second time. You could consider trying a refi with a new lender to get you a better LTV, if they wont accept a new appraisal.

[megstoo]

The only for us to drop is once we're at the loan to value or after 5 years whichever is latter. You might want to check your loan docs though because depending on when you bought your house you might not be able to drop PMI without a refi (for FHA loans).

[LoveTrains]

Mar 22, 2016 0:26:26 GMT -5 puppyluv said:

Our lender would not do anything for us unless we refi'ed, even though our appraisal was higher than the purchase price. However when we refi'ed, we used the same lender, and they told us they would then use our previous appraisal which, luckily, we knew was more than our purchase price. That gave us our 20% to get rid of PMI.

This may be specific to the credit union we used though. They were very adamant that only the purchase price could only be used in the original loan but then the appraisal was good enough the second time. You could consider trying a refi with a new lender to get you a better LTV, if they wont accept a new appraisal.

I have a 3.5% mortgage so I'm not inclined to refi but it's good advice for anyone with a rate not quite as favorable.