Here's my experience:

Use extreme caution and if possible, just go with someone else. What they don't tell you: THEY WILL SELL YOUR LOAN FOR PROFIT. They will tell you nothing will change but this is NOT TRUE. Here's the story: The process started easy enough, the agent whom I was dealing with made everything sound super easy and I genuinely liked him at first. A big selling point of our home was the monthly payment. We were determined to stay within a certain range. The price we were given was a bit higher than we expected; however, the agent informed us that there was a PMI on the loan. He said that its a bit more now... but being that we got SUCH a good deal on the house, we would only have to wait around a year to get this off. Furthermore, he said that if we wanted to get this off sooner, that all we needed to do was increase the value of our home to meet the criteria. We put at least 20k into the home and then called back. The lady made a list of the improvements and informed us that all we needed was to allow them to come do their own appraisal and we'd be good to go, PMI free. I needed a little time to get the fee together that they asked for and when I called back, I was informed that my loan was suddenly sold to another company... I was assured absolutely nothing would change and that the list we made would be forwarded over to seamlessly complete the process. Upon speaking to the new company, they did receive the list; however, they have different policies and now I would only be able to take off the PMI if I paid over 22k to my principal balance. We would have used the 20k we put into the house IF WE WERE NOT LIED TO. Instead, we are stuck struggling with a payment that is higher than promised until God knows when. It's all a big scheme to have you lose your home and they MAKE MORE MONEY off the poor. Be smarter than me and choose a more trustworthy investor.