Hi Joshie, nice to hear from you! If you can avoid going FHA (even though the down payment will be lower), I would save up and go conventional. There are plenty of banks with loans that require less than the normal 20% down for a conventional loan. Shop the different banks and credit unions, if your credit score is 680 or above, you shouldn't have any trouble finding a better deal than FHA. What they told you is correct---PMI is now 1.35% for the life of that FHA loan. You could always refinance out of an FHA mortgage, but generally it takes 3-5 years to pay down the additional costs of a refinance. I chose an ARM since I don't expect to keep my house longer than 5 more years, that gives me a lower interest rate, but that would go up after 5 years if I don't refinance again into something else or sell the house. Bottom line...shop around, the banks have different programs for low down payment options, and in some cases they even have down payment assistance help through different programs, too. Hope that helps!BethAnn From: Josh <lawdog911@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: audio-pals@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 5:04 PM Subject: [audio-pals] Re: Ghost Town #yiv5250879071 #yiv5250879071 -- _filtered #yiv5250879071 {font-family:Helvetica;panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;} _filtered #yiv5250879071 {font-family:Helvetica;panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;} _filtered #yiv5250879071 {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv5250879071 {font-family:Tahoma;panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}#yiv5250879071 #yiv5250879071 p.yiv5250879071MsoNormal, #yiv5250879071 li.yiv5250879071MsoNormal, #yiv5250879071 div.yiv5250879071MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;}#yiv5250879071 a:link, #yiv5250879071 span.yiv5250879071MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv5250879071 a:visited, #yiv5250879071 span.yiv5250879071MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv5250879071 p.yiv5250879071MsoAcetate, #yiv5250879071 li.yiv5250879071MsoAcetate, #yiv5250879071 div.yiv5250879071MsoAcetate {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:8.0pt;}#yiv5250879071 span.yiv5250879071BalloonTextChar {}#yiv5250879071 span.yiv5250879071EmailStyle19 {color:#1F497D;}#yiv5250879071 .yiv5250879071MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} _filtered #yiv5250879071 {margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}#yiv5250879071 div.yiv5250879071WordSection1 {}#yiv5250879071 Happy Belated birthday to the oldest pepperoni *LOL*. So, do refinances cost a lot of money? I was told today that with an FHA I have to carry PMI for the life of the loan, but that I could refinance once I got 20% down on the home so I could drop the PMI. However, with conventional I could avoid the upfront lump sum that they throw in on PMI and drop the PMI once I got 20% or 3 years behind me. Can you enlighten me on this? From: audio-pals-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:audio-pals-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of BethAnn LaPresta (Redacted sender "bela28_02@xxxxxxxxx" for DMARC) Sent: Monday, November 17, 2014 11:25 AM To: audio-pals@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [audio-pals] Re: Ghost Town Hi everyone. Nothing exciting on this end, just working and trying to do some projects around the house for the appraisal...trying to refinance and get some cash out of the house to pay for it all. LOL My oldest turned 29 on Friday and apparently ate the entire jello cake yesterday (with the exception of 3 pieces I made him share with his friends/brother). The Seattle Seahawks lost, so I left right after that to avoid the inevitable "crabby" that would be expressed about the loss. Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!BethAnn From: Heather H <copperlee73@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "audio-pals@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <audio-pals@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2014 10:35 PM Subject: [audio-pals] Re: Ghost Town Hello, Josh and Tom. Everything is okay here in snowy Ohio. The snow is coming down here and I am looking forward to going out and playing in it with Selah. well, she will play...I wouldn't do anything so childish as that...lol Hope everyone who celebraates it, has a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving. No turkey here of course...can't trust it. chicken and dumplings here for us. The store killed chicken little for this dish not me!!!! Hugs to you Bethie!!!!! Happy birthday to my oldest nephew who just turned 29. OMG, I'm old. Who let them grow up? Sent from my iPhone On Nov 16, 2014, at 11:56 PM, Thomas McMahan <shadowmonstrosity@xxxxxxx> wrote:Nope you’re still in the list and so should everybody else bee, it’s just been dead quiet lately. Heather probably has the bus running again and she and George and Pete and who knows who else are probably driving around and stopping at Wal-marts in Canada again trying to get Liz’s attention. But I’m not sure they are going to get Liz’s attention *lol*. Got an e-mail from Suzi off list so know she’s alive too. BethAnn might be doing another batch of sessions of closet rap for her next album release or something, or she’s waiting to sell you a house Josh. It might be “the perfect place.” Or maybe not depends on who’s standard of perfection is being used perhaps. Don’t know about Don. Danny though is alive and well, eating lots and lots of cream corn, well probably every meal he eats is cream corn, because he doesn’t like it so he has been placed into the cream corn factor. Patti continues to improve bit by bit, gets a little more talkative over time at times. She has a couple of appointments coming in December, one is physical, the other is the Neurologist. But I’m thinking generally things will be going in the right direction for her as afar as they are concerned. On Nov 16, 2014, at 10:20 PM, Josh <lawdog911@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Hello, How is everyone doing? I have not seen any post from the list in a few weeks now. I am wondering if I have not gotten myself booted somehow unintentionally. I guess the last I seen any post was Tom and I interacting about the family issues. The issues are not a hundred percent, but I do feel that since Amanda stood up and stood her ground we have gotten more respect. Now, it seems as though we are actualy people and not servants. However, that could change at any moment. Well, we have our prequalification letter and have found a few houses that we are interested in. We have to call tomorrow and get a real estate agent. Getting the prequal was a bit ofa hassle though. Today Amanda and I went and bought little man some birthday presents and got his location reserved. Sometime this week we have to get the invitations filled-out. Amanda and I are in the home stretch of the semester and everything seems to be going alright. I am in one class where I will not know if I passed or failed until the final grade comes out since 50% of the points aren’t going to be figured until the end of the semester. Amanda as far as I know is doing fine in her classes, she has some projects that she is working on, but I belive they are going fine. So, as always we have a ton of things going on, but little time *LOL*. Have a good one and I hope to be able to read some list traffic here in a few days. Take care and chat later.