I've written here about my mortgage troubles with the bank I refinanced with last year. It was not a good experience at all and has continued to suck even a year later with their refusal to drop PMI, etc.

Since my taxes for this year are filed and I now have two years of adequate income in self-employment to show, I started the process to refinance my home.  I contacted my sister's mortgage person and right off the bat this person is about a million times better than the previous one. It's with USBank with whom I have been since 2004, and I trust them. And the mortgage officer is incredibly responsive and helpful.

I already have a small amount of savings - the mortgage officer ran my home value through the automated system and it came back at around what the Zillow estimate is, so I do not need to do an appraisal since my loan amount is less than 78% of the home value. That is $575 in savings right there! Not to mention that I will not have to pay PMI, which will be an additional $39.95 saved each month. 

Yet again confirmation that I needed to leave the old awful bank I have the mortgage with. My current mortgage lender refused to run an automated appraisal for me and insisted that I would have to pay for a new appraisal. Furthermore, regardless of the appraised value, they insisted that I would have to continue to pay PMI for the next two years despite my having ~29% equity in my home. Screw them! I can't wait to be done with them.

I'm refinancing for a 15-year loan term. 2.75%

I heard back from my mortgage lender. They won't automatically drop the PMI within 2 years of executing a refinance on my mortgage even if I have paid down to 78% of the home value (even if I don't account for appreciation). I can request and pay for an assessment to demonstrate that I have made substantial improvements (they apparently won't consider appreciation of home prices in the area), and even then it's not a guarantee that the assesor's report will make it happen. I am pissed! I have had nothing but trouble with this particular credit union through the whole process, and this is the last straw.

So, after filing taxes in a couple of months, I am doing another refinance as long as the interest rates remain low. This time, I will take out a 15 year mortgage with a different bank. I ran the numbers and it looks like if the mortgage rates remain the same as they are today, and I keep the same accelerated monthly payment amount as I am paying now, and presuming I won't have to pay PMI on this new refinance, I will pay $17k less in interest, and pay off a year earlier. It seems worth the hassle and the refi costs.

I hate debt for the years I spent in debt, and with the one remaining debt I have, I keep being reminded of how little power and freedom a debtor has. Debt is EVIL!

/rant over.

I had requested early this month to drop the PMI since I now have 22% equity in the house. It's not a lot of money, but I was excited about this milestone and putting $40 extra each month towards the principal balance. I heard back from my Credit Union mortgage person. The CU is still the servicer of the loan although some other company purchased my mortgage a few months ago. 

She told me that she is going to let the company holding my mortgage know to see if this is possible. I asked her why it would not be possible since I am now at a point where they legally have to drop the PMI. She said that sometimes PMI can't be dropped until it has been a year since the loan has been taken out. She is going to find out for me if this applies to my loan. I had refinanced in June, and if this is the case, I would have to wait till June of next year to drop the PMI. I was pissed. No one told me about this when I refinanced. It may have been in the fine print, but I did not read that - and that is on me. I am cheesed off nevertheless!