Have equity in your home? Want a lower payment? An appraisal from April Linton Smith Appraisals can help you get rid of your PMI.A 20% down payment is usually the standard when buying a house. Because the risk for the lender is often only the remainder between the home value and the amount remaining on the loan, the 20% provides a nice cushion against the expenses of foreclosure, reselling the home, and regular value variationsin the event a borrower is unable to pay. Lenders were taking down payments as low as 10, 5 and often 0 percent in the peak of last decade's mortgage boom. How does a lender handle the added risk of the low down payment? The answer is Private Mortgage Insurance or PMI. PMI protects the lender in case a borrower doesn't pay on the loan and the worth of the property is lower than what is owed on the loan. PMI can be pricey to a borrower on the grounds that the $40-$50 a month per $100,000 borrowed is lumped into the mortgage monthly payment and oftentimes isn't even tax deductible. Unlike a piggyback loan where the lender absorbs all the deficits, PMI is lucrative for the lender because they collect the money, and they receive payment if the borrower is unable to pay. 
Does your monthly mortgage payment include PMI? Contact us, you may be able to save money by removing your PMI. How home owners can prevent bearing the cost of PMIWith the implementation of The Homeowners Protection Act of 1998, on nearly all loans lenders are obligated to automatically stop the PMI when the principal balance of the loan reaches 78 percent of the initial loan amount. Savvy home owners can get off the hook a little earlier. The law designates that, at the request of the homeowner, the PMI must be dropped when the principal amount reaches just 80 percent. Since it can take many years to get to the point where the principal is only 20% of the original amount of the loan, it's necessary to know how your home has grown in value. After all, all of the appreciation you've achieved over time counts towards dismissing PMI. So what's the reason for paying it after your loan balance has dropped below the 80% mark? Even when nationwide trends predict declining home values, understand that real estate is local. Your neighborhood might not be following the national trends and/or your home could have acquired equity before things simmered down. The toughest thing for most home owners to know is just when their home's equity goes over the 20% point. An accredited, licensed real estate appraiser can certainly help. It's an appraiser's job to know the market dynamics of their area. At April Linton Smith Appraisals, we're experts at determining value trends in Port Saint Joe, Gulf County and surrounding areas, and we know when property values have risen or declined. When faced with information from an appraiser, the mortgage company will most often eliminate the PMI with little effort. At that time, the homeowner can delight in the savings from that point on.
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