CCdaCE
Full time employment: Posting here.
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2006
- Messages
- 897
Yep. After 7 sickening years of paying PMI/MIP (mortgate insurance), we're all done paying for that. Just feel like I need to celebrate, even though it was "only" about $50+ at the start of the loan, down to $42/mo. lately.
Bought the house in '03. I thought after a few years I/we could whittle down the loan enough to get out of it. Heard you could use new appraisals, but after 9 mos. Chase bought the loan and they don't allow new appraisals as a basis for eliminating PMI. Heard that you could do 80/20 or 80/10/10 or whatever combo. of loans to get rid of the PMI, but the 2nd/3rd loan interest rate ended up costing more than the PMI did. So, didn't go that route. It was a 5/1 ARM, so, then the interest rate racheted up after a couple years. The extra 2% ended up being way more than PMI, so I kindof forgot about it/blew it off. Behavioral economics or something? Mental accounting?
The thought of me paying an insurance to cover the lender continued to irk me. So, this spring, I called Chase and they say loan has to be under 80% LTV. I still had a couple grand to go, so, I put that toward the loan this summer. Called again asking to drop PMI, nope, has to be under 78% LTV, and then in their written letter, they put a dollar amount that doesn't correspond to either percentage of the original loan amount. The remaining principal must be under "this". This ended up being about $600 less than the remaining loan amount. Odd. So, pay that additional two months ago. I thought the 'remove-PMI' genie would appear, but I had to call 'em again. They finally agree to drop PMI since it's under the "mystery number" and it's been 5 years of paying premiums (another magic number, to me, and according to Chase is a law, somewhere).
So, 2-3 weeks ago, they said they'd submit a new escrow analysis, which I've yet to see. Haven't made a payment to get a new statement to see if they still deducted PMI from escrow. Hopefully our loan makes it "through the gauntlet" and gets the PMI dropped. $42/mo. doesn't seem like big bucks, but $504/year does. Like I said, for nothing, I don't see any benefit from paying it. I'd rather blow it on Sam Adams or Summit beer.
It'll be a relief or one less irritant. Getting things like this removed/resolved shouldn't be this complicated. Don't know who else to "brag" to. Last check, my credit score was just under 800, hers is over 800.
-CC
Bought the house in '03. I thought after a few years I/we could whittle down the loan enough to get out of it. Heard you could use new appraisals, but after 9 mos. Chase bought the loan and they don't allow new appraisals as a basis for eliminating PMI. Heard that you could do 80/20 or 80/10/10 or whatever combo. of loans to get rid of the PMI, but the 2nd/3rd loan interest rate ended up costing more than the PMI did. So, didn't go that route. It was a 5/1 ARM, so, then the interest rate racheted up after a couple years. The extra 2% ended up being way more than PMI, so I kindof forgot about it/blew it off. Behavioral economics or something? Mental accounting?
The thought of me paying an insurance to cover the lender continued to irk me. So, this spring, I called Chase and they say loan has to be under 80% LTV. I still had a couple grand to go, so, I put that toward the loan this summer. Called again asking to drop PMI, nope, has to be under 78% LTV, and then in their written letter, they put a dollar amount that doesn't correspond to either percentage of the original loan amount. The remaining principal must be under "this". This ended up being about $600 less than the remaining loan amount. Odd. So, pay that additional two months ago. I thought the 'remove-PMI' genie would appear, but I had to call 'em again. They finally agree to drop PMI since it's under the "mystery number" and it's been 5 years of paying premiums (another magic number, to me, and according to Chase is a law, somewhere).
So, 2-3 weeks ago, they said they'd submit a new escrow analysis, which I've yet to see. Haven't made a payment to get a new statement to see if they still deducted PMI from escrow. Hopefully our loan makes it "through the gauntlet" and gets the PMI dropped. $42/mo. doesn't seem like big bucks, but $504/year does. Like I said, for nothing, I don't see any benefit from paying it. I'd rather blow it on Sam Adams or Summit beer.
It'll be a relief or one less irritant. Getting things like this removed/resolved shouldn't be this complicated. Don't know who else to "brag" to. Last check, my credit score was just under 800, hers is over 800.
-CC
.. SOOO, refied to a low rate of 9% and got rid of it...
