The PMI fee goes toward insurance coverage that protects your lender—not you—in case you can't make monthly payments and default on your loan. Your lender then can foreclose your house and auction it off to earn back the money they loaned you. At a foreclosure auction, lenders can recover about 80% of a home's value.
PMI is arranged by the lender and provided by private insurance companies. It insures the lender against loss caused by borrowers failing to make loan payments. Make no mistake: If you fall behind on your mortgage payments, PMI does not protect you and you can still lose your home through foreclosure.
Most of your monthly payment is applied to the interest you owe, and the remainder is applied to paying off the principal. Over time, as you pay down the principal, you owe less interest each month, because your loan balance is lower.
If the borrower is current on mortgage payments, PMI must be cancelled automatically once the LTV reaches 78 percent based on the original amortization schedule or when the midpoint of the amortization period is reached (i.e., 15 years on a 30-year mortgage).
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Many lenders (like Fannie Mae) also require a two-year “seasoning requirement,” meaning you can't have PMI removed until you've made two years' worth of on-time payments—even if your equity has grown above 20%. If it's been less than five years, you might even be required to have 25% worth of equity.
The 50/50 rule is a method for calculating Earned Value on in-progress work. It assigns 50% of the budget value when a task starts and the remaining 50% when it's completed. This rule is often used for short-duration tasks where more precise progress measurement isn't practical.
It suggests that homeowners who can afford substantial extra payments can pay off a 30-year mortgage in 15 years by making a weekly extra payment, equal to 10% of their monthly mortgage payment, toward the principal.
If you pay $100 extra each month towards principal, you can cut your loan term by more than 4.5 years and reduce the interest paid by more than $26,500. If you pay $200 extra a month towards principal, you can cut your loan term by more than 8 years and reduce the interest paid by more than $44,000.
After a year of mortgage payments, 31% of your money starts to go toward the principal. You see 45% going toward principal after ten years and 67% going toward principal after year 20.
The Bottom Line. PMI is expensive. Unless you think you can get 20% equity in the home within a couple of years, it probably makes sense to wait until you can make a larger down payment or consider a less expensive home, which will make a 20% down payment more affordable.
Your mortgage lender will determine the PMI rate and multiply the percentage by the loan balance. For example, if the PMI rate is 0.5% and your loan amount is $300,000, your PMI will cost $1,500 annually or $125 monthly.
Typically, the PMI cost, called a “premium,” is added to your monthly mortgage payment.
If you prepaid your entire PMI premium, you also might be able to get a refund for part of the premiums when you refinance. Some lenders also offer PMI-free mortgages to borrowers who put less than 20% down. But these have lender-paid private mortgage insurance (LPMI), and the loans often have a higher interest rate.
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. It's not money you can recoup with the sale of the house, it doesn't do anything for your loan balance, and it's not tax-deductible like your mortgage interest.
Private mortgage insurance (PMI) is an extra expense for conventional mortgage borrowers who put less than 20 percent down for a home. Although the borrower pays for it, PMI actually protects the lender, compensating for the extra risk the lender assumes by extending a larger loan with a lower down payment.
Ideally, you want your extra payments to go towards the principal amount. However, many lenders will apply the extra payments to any interest accrued since your last payment and then apply anything left over to the principal amount. Other times, lenders may apply extra funds to next month's payment.
The additional amount will reduce the principal on your mortgage, as well as the total amount of interest you will pay, and the number of payments.
The 2% rule states that you should aim for a 2% lower interest rate in order to ensure that the savings generated by your new loan will offset the cost refinancing, provided you've lived in your home for two years and plan to stay for at least two more.
Dave Ramsey, the renowned financial guru, has long been a proponent of financial discipline and savvy money management. This can include paying off your mortgage early, but only under specific financial circumstances.
Put simply, you will save significant amounts in interest. Most mortgage contracts allow borrowers to make extra payments, and they allow all of the extra money to be applied to the principal amount of your loan. That means you are paying down the real amount of the loan – the money you borrowed – faster.
Otherwise known as the 80/20 rule, the Pareto rule is a tool that can be used to improve project management efficiency. The rule states that 80% of the results of a project come from 20% of the work. Therefore, by focusing on the 20% of work that is most important, we can improve the efficiency of a project.
A PMI above 50 represents an expansion when compared with the previous month. A PMI reading under 50 represents a contraction while a reading at 50 indicates no change. The further away from 50, the greater the level of change.
A very approximate rule of thumb for estimating the postmortem interval is as follows: Warm and flaccid: less than 3 hours. Warm and stiff: 3 to 8 hours. Cold and stiff: 8 to 36 hours.