For most well-qualified borrowers at 20% down, conventional still wins once you compare apples to apples, even when FHA's sticker payment looks better. The trap is the upfront premium. FHA charges an upfront mortgage insurance premium on top of its annual mortgage insurance, and economically that upfront premium works a lot like paying discount points. FHA rates typically price below conventional, which is what makes the monthly payment look attractive, but the upfront premium is real money buried in the loan. The apples-to-apples move: take what that upfront premium costs and ask what rate you could get on the conventional loan if you spent the same money buying it down. Run the comparison that way and conventional usually comes out meaningfully ahead for a strong-credit borrower, so the lower FHA headline payment misleads. The real exception is credit score. Conventional pricing is heavily score-driven and FHA's is much flatter, so for a lower-score borrower the FHA advantage widens a lot, and FHA can genuinely be the better deal even with 20% down. One more wrinkle: mortgage insurance is no longer tax deductible the way it once was, which used to soften this comparison (confirm your own situation with a tax professional, since those rules have changed before). Do not choose on the monthly payment alone. The right call turns on your credit and the true, points-adjusted comparison, which is exactly what we lay out on the free Roadmap conversation, about 20 minutes where we run your real numbers.