PMI removal

[Jim Huber]

I have a home that is right at 81 pecent LTV or Loan to value I live in Jacksonville Fl .I initially financed the home as an investment property and have asked the Mortgage company to drop the PMI insurance.They state that the LTV should be at 70 percent and if the property is appraised by their people and meets the 70 baseline they will drop the PMI insurance.I* reside in the home have homestead on the house and have the address on my drivers license. How should I approach this? I will be able to drop my payment by roughly 100 dollars a month.I thought the federal guidelines on this was 80 percent.I think I could meet the appraised value criterea but would like to wiggle out of this expence if possible? Also any thoughts on maybe Govt programs to get this refied as my homestead my income is not great? Thanks for your help !!

[Bryan Hancock]

The answer is that it depends on a few factors:

• Type of loan
• How long you've held the loan
• If you've paid on time

Here are some good articles from The Mortgage Professor on this topic:

Cancelling Private Mortgage Insurance (1)

Cancelling Private Mortgage Insurance (2)

This article contains the procedure for putting in a "qualified written request" with your servicer so you're not getting the run-around with people over the phone:

Is There Recourse Against Bad Mortgage Servicing?