I'm posting this just to let others know what I found out.
We purchased our home 5 yrs ago and put only 5% down. (we opted to save the rest for fixing up the house - BOY, was it needed!). We discovered at closing that they added an extra $90.00 for PMI !!! That's the insurance that guarantees to the lender that we'll make the mortgage payments!!! It is not a mortgage insurance in the normal sense. To say I was not amused was putting it mildly. Anyway, I read in a magazine the other day that when your home mortgage is 75% of value, you can have that taken off!!!! So, okay - is that the value of the home when I bought it or the value today???? BIG difference, unfortunately!
So yesterday, I called the mortgage company, B of A, and lo and behold the man said it was 75% of the PURCHASE PRICE and he'll put in a request for the insurance to be dropped!!!! YAY!!! $100. for more fabric..............oh yeah, DH will want part of that....shoot. Oh, well, $50.00 for fabric!!!!
note: apparently if the value of your house has gone up, it's 70%, etc.....so you need to look into it if you have pmi on your home!