Private Mortgage House Insurance (PMI) Tips

"Hello! My name is Brett Staggs and on behalf of Expert Village, I will be telling you how much you can afford for a first time home buyer. When applying for your first home loan, you are trying to figure out how much house you can actually afford. It is very important to keep in mind that if you are getting a loan that over 80 percent of the home value, the law says that you have to be able to come up with mortgage insurance or as many people would call it, MI. What MI is or mortgage insurance is basically your loan is for more than 80 percent therefore risk involved is a lot greater so they are going to charge you this mortgage insurance. It is insurance for your actual mortgage and that percentage is going to be based on the type of loan you are getting and it is also going to be based on your credit score. So keep in mind if you are getting a loan for 80 percent or higher than 80 percent, mortgage insurance is going to come into play and be sure to ask whoever you are working with right up front to say listen, my loan is for 90 percent or 100 percent or whatever it might be over 80 and I know that I am going to need mortgage insurance. Can you tell me right now what I might be looking at as far as monthly charge for that. It will be a monthly charge. It will come with your mortgage statement and you want to make sure that you budget for that and you have enough income and assets to cover that per month."