[garrettgrimsley]

>Apply for Removal: You can apply to have PMI removed if you get an appraisal showing that your loan balance is less than 80% of your home’s current value.

>I ruled out option #2 because appraisals are expensive. Spending hundreds of dollars for an appraisal, on top of paying for PMI, felt like throwing good money after bad.

Your mileage may vary, but for myself, in August of 2023 in Raleigh, the property valuation cost was $190. Check with your lender, or shop around for a different valuation company that they accept. My numbers were similar to those of the author: my PMI was $113.83 and my time for loan-to-value to reach 80% was about four years.

What I found was doing the property valuation and then investing the lump sum of cash put me ahead of the 10% 1-year return. The author can now take their $115 monthly savings and invest, but it will never yield nearly as much as investing the $32,000 in even the most conservative scenarios.

You can play around with some various scenarios in a spreadsheet or https://www.investor.gov/financial-tools-calculators/calcula...

[c22]

Yeah, I don't get it. Even if the appraisal cost $500 that represents 4-5 months of extra pmi payments. It's not clear from the article, but it sounds like the author might not have had the 32k sitting around liquid, so they probably ended up paying for these months anyway. If they took the 32k out of the market that's even worse. I can't imagine choosing option one over option two unless you're unsure if your house has gained enough value or appraisals cost many thousands of dollars. But then I can't imagine getting a house loan with pmi in the first place. This is why everyone says to put 20% down.