According to the Wall Street Journal mortgage insurers are busy tightening their belts and their standards when it comes to mortgage insurance, making it that much more difficult for potential home buyers.

It seems potential home owners are feeling the squeeze both by mortgage companies and mortgage insurers. It appears gone are the days where just about anyone could find themselves with a mortgage and call themselves a home owner.

Mortgage insurance is a requirement for those seeking a mortgage that don’t have a complete down payment. Recently the requirements to qualify for mortgage insurance has increased in the US and Canada has followed suit for October of this year.

Single family dwellings, condominiums, houses in need of rehabilitation, and houses that have two, thee, or four units all qualify for mortgage insurance. Usually 10% or 20% is the standard required down payment, but banks will finance you with a lower down payment when you use mortgage insurance.

What does this mean to those looking to buy a home? Well if you have the required down payment it doesn’t mean a lot to you, but for many the full down payment is not a viable option and so they may be faced with a harder time qualifying for the mortgage.

It may keep some out of the housing market a little longer than they had hoped for, or it may require a little more creative financing. By creative financing potential homeowners may have to look at rent to own to meet their down payment requirements, different methods of saving that will allow one to raise the needed down payment.

But really the new mortgage insurance requirements are likely to save a few people some heartache down the road when they are not able to meet their mortgage payments because they overextended themselves in the beginning…Time will tell just how these changes affect the market.