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NegativeOrchid t1_it7ywjf wrote

Reply to comment by auntiepink in Many countries have a "hidden welfare state" for incumbent homeowners, as governments subsidize homeowners through the tax system. The homeownership welfare state is strongest in the US and other Anglophone countries, but weakest in the Scandinavian countries. by smurfyjenkins

Do you have more info on this sort of thing?

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SFXBTPD t1_it82jom wrote

Not financial advice:

Any lender can give you an FHA loan, it gives you rates comparable to a credit score around 750 (so little to no benefit for the top 50% credit percentile). They allow you to put only like 5% down but I believe there is a mortgage insurance fee of like 3% of the purchase price upfront

When you do get a mortgage look at zillow and bankrate to find competitive lenders and reach put to 7 or 8 of them so you can get your interest rate down

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NegativeOrchid t1_it8557r wrote

Wow thank you

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SFXBTPD t1_it8745s wrote

Np, went through all this for the first time a couple months ago so its fresh in my head

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CharlieChop t1_itamziu wrote

Also note that mortgage insurance is based on the assessed value of the home. If your home increases in value you can request your mortgager to reassess the value to leverage new equity against what you owe. For us we needed to have at least 20% of the assessed value covered before they’d remove the PMI. It was around $500 to have the property reassessed, but it cut off years of those payments.

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retaliashun t1_itb15k7 wrote

It depends on the terms of your mortgage. Terms in my mortgage was I had to reach 20% of the value I paid for the house, didn’t matter what it may appraise for. With an FHA loan you won’t ever get rid of pmi unless you refi into a conventional loan.

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Katomega t1_itbbmr2 wrote

Yep, my terms are similar, 20% of original assessed value, or prove that I did enough home improvement to justify the increase in valuation (ie, not just market fluctuations)

Sad news when I found that out last week.

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