Avoid PMI & Jumbo only 10% down with the 80-10-10 Piggyback Method

If you're buying a million dollar plus home in California, your default assumption is probably you need 20% down to avoid PMI and that you're going to be in jumbo loan territory. There's a structure that lets you put only 10% down, avoid PMI, and avoid jumbo entirely on a million dollar home. This is called the 80-10-10 piggyback. It's been around for a long time. This is nothing new to lending. It probably fell out of favor and didn't hear a lot about it, and it's back in 2026. A great option for a lot of borrowers. Let me explain to you what an 80-10-10 is cuz not everybody understands what that is. Instead of buying a million dollar home and needing to put 20% down, which is $200,000, let me tell you about the structure of the 80-10-10. You still have the same $800,000 first mortgage. That's the 80% part. But, you're going to get a second mortgage or a home equity line of credit for 10% for $100,000. And then you're going to put $100,000 or 10% down. That's why it's an 80-10-10. The million dollar example is really easy to do the math on because it's a million dollar house, you put 10% down, there's that little 10% second, and then there's a $800,000 first mortgage. So, really, you have $900,000 in debt and you've got $100,000 in down payment. The big difference here is in most counties where the conforming loan limit is $832,000 and some change, you're not going to get a jumbo loan even though you're buying something with $900,000 in debt, which would be a jumbo in that county did you not structure it this way. You're also not going to pay any mortgage insurance even though you're putting only 10% down. So, it, for a number of reasons, is a great option. And people like this option. You're only putting $100,000 down instead of $200,000 down. And, like I mentioned, the $800,000 first is a conforming conventional loan, great rates because it's under the 832-750 conforming loan limit. So, you're getting the conforming rates, getting conforming underwriting, which is generally speaking going to be less strict than jumbo underwriting, and of course, you're avoiding private mortgage insurance. On loans this big, private mortgage insurance can be three, four, five hundred dollars a month. I've seen it up to eight hundred dollars a month. It depends on your credit score, but you avoid that altogether. You don't pay anything. Zero dollars and zero cents in mortgage insurance. And that's the whole game. Less cash, no PMI, conforming rates, conforming underwriting, piece of cake.