Monthly or Upfront PMI

[Anne1208]

I JUST found this out a few weeks ago as well.

We will either put 5% down or 10% down on a house probably no more than $400k (prob more like 325-350 but i did all calcs with the absolute most we would want to spend)...then calculated buyer paid upfront nonreimbursable PMI for both 5% and 10% down with creidt in the 660-680 range.

Upfront for 5% was like, $13,000 - for 10% it was $8200.

Considering we will def live in our house as long as possible, assuming we have the cash and it's something the lender lets us do, we will consider doing it.  ESPECIALLY if we get our closing costs for free (no idea the likelihood of that but we've budgeted $9000 for closing costs in our forecast)....

I used a mortgage calculator online that shows how much you will have toward princple every month for 360 months, and assuming our house doesnt dramatically increase in value and we just pay what's due monthly, the upfront in both cases is way less than the amount of months of monthly PMI it would take to get to 20% equity.

reimbursable upfront PMI was a little more - apparently reimbursable means if you get to 20% early you can apply to get reimbursed for a portion of what you paid upfront - again, tradeoff with this is it's a little more upfront than nonreimbursable.

I thought it was an interesting option and I hope it's available to us when we're ready to buy.  Between money down, interest rates, PMI, closing costs, points, there are SO many variables to think about! at least when you get all the information, if upfront is available and you have the cash, you can figure out if it'll pay off for you too!