[swozey]

If I made $180k and didn't have 20% and they required 20% I wouldn't be able to buy a house. That's what I'm saying. There are also people like me, a LOT of us, who buy house we can "afford" (technically speaking) but just doesn't make sense to wait another 5+ years to accumulate the 20% total.

I don't care at all about 20% now that I know PMI is only around $160/mo and can be removed. I wish I'd known that like a decade before I bought my first house, I would've bought WAY earlier.

I thought you HAD to have 20% until I was probabyl nearly 30 and could get anywhere near buying a house.