Mortgage insurance is the price of buying without a full 20% down, and for a lot of buyers that's a reasonable trade. Consider the alternative. Saving a true 20% down payment on, say, a $1,000,000 home means banking $200,000, which isn't realistic for most people in any workable timeframe. While you wait, prices may keep moving, and nobody can promise which way, so the wait-until-20% plan can leave you chasing a target that keeps shifting. For a well-qualified borrower, MI is often more modest than expected. The exact cost depends on your credit, down payment, and program, and pricing changes, so get a current quote rather than assuming the worst. The bigger picture: paying some MI to buy sooner lets you start building equity and amortizing your loan now, and on most loans the MI comes off once you've built enough equity. That frequently beats sitting out for years to avoid a relatively small monthly cost. It isn't automatically the right call for everyone. Compare the real MI number against what waiting actually costs you, and decide from there.