Some Massachusetts communities have made the list of those with special financing restrictions from Genworth Mortgage Insurance. Mortgage insurance (commonly known as PMI )providers help to mitigate lender’s risks by insuring the difference between a buyer’s down payment and 20% of the homes cost. If for example you were to put 5% down to buy a property you would likely have to buy mortgage insurance for the 15% balance - make sense?

PMI only affects investors in small properties of 1-4 units and those who are buying with less than a 20% down payment.

You can visit the Genworth site and enter a zip code to see if its on the list.

The locations that are affected include the following:
Barnstable Town, MA Metropolitan Statistical Area
Principal City: Barnstable Town
Barnstable County

Boston-Quincy, MA Metropolitan Division
Norfolk County, Plymouth County, Suffolk County
*The referenced division is the only area restricted in the MSA of:
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area

Worcester, MA Metropolitan Statistical Area
Principal City: Worcester
Worcester County

This report got me into reading a bit more about what the mortgage insurers are saying. I found that PMI Group Inc. said the following:

Our models indicate that the decline in house prices is only about one-third to one-half over, due primarily to the magnitude of the supply/demand imbalance in the housing market. This assumes that the current economic downturn is both short and modest, and that the disarray in financial markets ends soon.

More than ever, when you’re investing in real estate, buy something that makes today, where the numbers work right now. When you’re buying think of what Warren Buffet says about investing in stocks - he says that when he buys a stock he buys as though the market will be closed for the next 10 years, this is how you buy investment real estate to grow long term wealth.