If you bought a Boston condo and made a down payment of less than 20 percent, the lender required you to buy mortgage insurance. The same goes if you refinanced with less than 20 percent equity.
Private mortgage insurance is expensive, but you can’t remove it until you have met some conditions.
How to get rid of PMI?
To remove PMI, or private mortgage insurance, you must have at least 20 percent equity in the home. You may ask the lender to cancel PMI when you have paid down the mortgage balance to 80 percent of the home’s original appraised value. When the balance drops to 78 percent, the mortgage servicer is required to eliminate PMI.
Although you can cancel private mortgage insurance, you cannot cancel Federal Housing Administration insurance. You can get rid of FHA insurance by refinancing into a non-FHA-insured loan.
