The only way to cancel PMI is to refinance your mortgage. If you refinance your current loan's interest rate or refinance into a different loan type, you may be able to cancel your mortgage insurance.
Whether you'll need PMI on the new loan will depend on your home's current value and the principal balance of the new mortgage. You can likely get rid of PMI if your equity has increased to at least 20% and you don't use a cash-out refinance.
Can you get rid of PMI on an FHA loan without refinancing? It could be possible to eliminate your FHA mortgage insurance premium without refinancing. But only if you got your loan before 2013 or put at least 10% down when you bought the home.
But your lender won't simply remove PMI when you hit the 20% equity mark. You have to ask, and the lender can say no -- for a while. A lender has to drop PMI when you reach 22% equity based on the original purchase price of the home (in other words, when you owe 78% of your home value).
You have the right to request that your servicer cancel PMI when you have reached the date when the principal balance of your mortgage is scheduled to fall to 80 percent of the original value of your home. This date should have been given to you in writing on a PMI disclosure form when you received your mortgage.
For homeowners with a conventional mortgage loan, you may be able to get rid of PMI with a new appraisal if your home value has risen enough to put you over 20 percent equity. However, some loan servicers will re-evaluate PMI based only on the original appraisal.
Is PMI deductible? The legislation, signed into law Dec. 20, 2019, not only makes the deduction available again for eligible homeowners for the 2020 and future tax years, but also enables taxpayers to take it retroactively for the 2018 and 2019 tax years by filing amended returns.
To remove PMI, or private mortgage insurance, you must have at least 20% equity in the home. You may ask the lender to cancel PMI when you have paid down the mortgage balance to 80% of the home's original appraised value. When the balance drops to 78%, the mortgage servicer is required to eliminate PMI.
To sum up, when it comes to PMI, if you have less than 20% of the sales price or value of a home to use as a down payment, you have two basic options: Use a "stand-alone" first mortgage and pay PMI until the LTV of the mortgage reaches 78%, at which point the PMI can be eliminated. 2. Use a second mortgage.
Dear (Servicer Name): I am requesting to cancel my private mortgage insurance. The coverage is with (Mortgage Insurance Company Name) and my mortgage loan number is (loan number). I have included documentation to support why I think the equity in my home has reached or exceeded 20%.
Your mortgage servicer is required to cancel your PMI for free when your mortgage balance reaches 78% of the home's value, or the mortgage hits the halfway point of the loan term, such as the 15th year of a 30-year mortgage.
You can remove PMI from your monthly payment after your home reaches 20% in equity, either by requesting its cancellation or refinancing the loan. The specific steps you'll take to cancel your PMI will vary depending on the type of insurance you have.
FHA loans do not charge PMI. Instead, they require MIP, the FHA's own brand of mortgage insurance premiums. Modern FHA loans require MIP for the entire life of the loan unless you put 10 percent or more down. In that case they go away after 11 years.
“In general, private mortgage insurance is available for borrowers with credit scores as low as 620 with down payments as low as 3 percent,” says Anthony Guarino, senior vice president of pricing and credit policy for Genworth Mortgage Insurance.
The traditional way to avoid paying PMI on a mortgage is to take out a piggyback loan. In that event, if you can only put up 5 percent down for your mortgage, you take out a second "piggyback" mortgage for 15 percent of the loan balance, and combine them for your 20 percent down payment.
“In order to get your private mortgage insurance removed, you may need to be on the loan for a minimum of 12 months,” shares Helali. “After you've been on the loan for one year, the lender should automatically dissolve the PMI when you have 22% equity in the home.”
When it comes to calculating mortgage insurance or PMI, lenders use the “Purchase price or appraised value, whichever is less” guideline. Thus, using a purchase price of $200,000 and $210,000 appraised value, the PMI rate will be based on the lower purchase price.
The federal Homeowners Protection Act gives you the right to remove PMI from your home loan in two ways: You can get “automatic” or “final” PMI termination at specific home equity milestones. You can request to remove PMI when you reach 20 percent home equity.
Taxpayers have been able to deduct PMI in the past, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act extended the deduction into 2020 and 2021. The deduction is subject to qualified taxpayers' AGI limits and begins phasing out at $100,000 and ends at those with an AGI of $109,000 (regardless of filing status).
Homeowners insurance is typically not tax deductible, but there are other deductions you can claim as long as you keep track of your expenses and itemize your taxes each year.
Private mortgage insurance does nothing for you
Unlike the principal of your loan, your PMI payment doesn't go into building equity in your home.
The biggest difference between the FHA Streamline and most traditional mortgage refinance options is that the FHA Streamline doesn't require a home appraisal. Instead, the FHA will allow you to use your original purchase price as your home's current value, regardless of what your home is actually worth today.
The basic requirements of a streamline refinance are: The mortgage to be refinanced must already be FHA insured. The mortgage to be refinanced must be current (not delinquent). The refinance results in a net tangible benefit to the borrower.
FHA refinance credit score requirements
In practice, you typically need a credit score of 580 or higher for an FHA refinance. FHA cash-out refinancing requires a higher credit score; typically 600-620 or above.