How much did you put down on your home?

[No More Perfect]

I am curious as to how much people actually put down on their homes? I know there are so many variables and I'd love to hear those, as well. We are hoping to be first-time home buyers at some point but honestly, I am unsure as to whether or not we will ever have enough for down payment.

 

Thanks!

[Whereneverever]

Our first home we had a first time homebuyer loan. We put 5% down. We are in the process of buying again and will be pittmg about 15% down.

 

On a conventional mortgage if you put less then 20% down you have to pay pmi. Once you pay 20% of the principal that drops off.

[bettyandbob]

we put down enough to not pay PMI on our first home. I think we put down more on our second home--that was 15 years ago

[FaithManor]

20%

 

Purchased on a 10 year, will be paid off in October...3 years early.

 

No PMI due to the larger downpayment and actually, for whateve reason, our homeowner's insurance premium was also lower due to the downpayment.

 

Faith

[Joker]

We have a VA loan and put zero down.

[DawnM]

First home we put down about 10%. This home we put down about 30% because our CA house brought us some equity and we used almost all of it towards the purchase of this house in NC.

[Mama Geek]

Our last home we put down 5% because we had an 80 15 5 loan. The current house we bought outright, it was a foreclosure and it was much less than our last house and in a much different area.

[lynn]

I don't know if mortgage rules have changed but it use to be that you had to pay PMI in addition to your mortgage payment if you did not put down 20% or it was your responsibility to know when you had 20% of your loan paid off and to call the mortgage company and have PMI taken off and it was not an easy thing to do. I may be wrong but this is how it was explained to us so we always put down over 20%

[Ottakee]

I likely scewed the results as we paid cash outright for our new house. We thought got bought out by the state to put a highway through our last house which was paid off.

 

I think we only put $500 down on our last house and assumed the mortgage. It was an FmHA house so payments were based on our income........but initial interest was 8% back 20 years ago.

[Ottakee]

I likely scewed the results as we paid cash outright for our new house. We thought got bought out by the state to put a highway through our last house which was paid off.

 

I think we only put $500 down on our last house and assumed the mortgage. It was an FmHA house so payments were based on our income........but initial interest was 8% back 20 years ago.

[UrbanSue]

We borrowed an 8% down payment from family. We used a local urban homeowner's program and didn't have to have pmi. I know we're really fortunate, there. We kind of had to buy in an emergency and I would much rather have paid 20% down but we are repaying the entire down payment as well as a good bit of student loan and car debt over the first five years of owning our house (two years in, now) so we're doing well. We don't know if this is our last house and I'm looking forward to having more potential buying power once our debt is gone.

 

ETA: we also had closing costs half covered by the seller.

[Mama Geek]

The 80-15-5 loan didn't require us to pay PMI. It was 2 loans, 1 was 80%, 1 was 15% and 5% down.

[Tita Gidge]

Our first home was gifted to us, so we put 0% down. :thumbup:

 

Instead we put 25% down on an investment property, taking advantage of our situation at the time (dual-income, pre-kids, no house pymt.) It paid off, in spades.

 

I recently took a temporary work assignment in another state. It's long enough (and in a good enough market) that I decided to buy instead of rent. I used a VA loan, paid the lending fee upfront, and put 0% down. Then I began looking for a local investment property. I'm actively looking for the right one, and will have 20% to put down.

[Pippen]

42%. Those were back in our two income no kids days. No way that we could do that now.

[Ali in OR]

First house we were under 20%, but I can't remember how much exactly. We were probably between 15% and 20%. I know that when we had owned the house 1 year we paid to have it appraised and it had gone up in value enough that we were at 20% and could drop PMI (real estate was booming then). When we bought this house we put it the proceeds from the first. Again, I don't remember details but it was probably more like 40% by then.

[retiredHSmom]

We put down 37%.

[ailysh]

We put down 0% and our selller paid closing costs. That was in 2006 before the market dropped. Our home value went wayyyy down. But thankfully we bought well within our means and didn't do any fancy financing. Just a straight up conventional 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 7.1% with pmi. We had to pay pmi until we had 20% equity. We refinanced last year for a 15 year fixed rate at 3% with no pmi. We should have it paid off in the next couple of years.

[Jeannie in NJ]

we had received $50,000 from my mom's life insurance. We used $11,000 to adopt our first child and put the rest on the house so put $39,000 down on a $170,000 house.Could not have done either one without this money. We felt this was a last gift from my mom.

[KrissiK]

This is our second home. We put about 40% down.

[Cinder]

About 1/3 down. Our first house, though, was a 0 down VA loan.

[Seasider]

Most recently, about 45%.

 

But our first house? Five per cent. We had an FHA loan and tons of paperwork to sign at closing. It was a stretch but we made it work. Soon afterwards we sold it for about 20% above what we paid for it, so we put 10% down on the next one.

 

It's nice to get above 20% equity because you can drop out of paying MPI.

[Crimson Wife]

When we bought at the end of '09, we were unable to find a lender willing to do <20% on the mortgage size we needed. We did a re-fi last fall and to get approval for the lowest rate, we had to bump up our equity stake to 30% of the then-appraised value. Fortunately we had the savings to do that, and given that the re-fi knocked off $500/mo. from our mortgage payment, it was only about a 2 year period before we'd start coming out ahead.

 

Now that prices are rising again, it may be easier to find lenders willing to do a <20% loan.

[Sparkle]

0% down when we bought and we didn't have to pay PMI either. We got a nice loan. Of course, now it's even better that we refinanced to a lower rate.

[LostSurprise]

We bought our house in 2000. We put 6-8% down (from dh's sign on bonus) on a 5 year ARM mortgage. That particular loan meant we didn't need PMI insurance and we refinanced before the end of the 5 year locked rate changed. At that point we had more than 20% down so we got a fixed 15 year loan.

[Excelsior! Academy]

We put down 20%. Our first loan was 184. Our refi is conventional with equity.

[Amber in SJ]

It really does depend on where you live. Around here almost no one (barring lottery winners) can make the recommended 20% down payment. My neighbor just sold their little, 1200 sq ft, "first house" home for 659K ($50K more than their asking price.) How would anyone in the buying their first house position have 20%?

 

That said we saved 5%, borrowed 5% from hubby's 401K to put down 10%. Our dual income, no kids years were spent paying off student loans that we had to take to get through school. We recently refinanced to a 15-yr/2.75% that will be paid off soon.

[Susan in TN]

We put 20% down on our first and second homes. We saved for quite a while for the first one (although once we were out of debt, the saving went much quicker). On our next home we put 20% down from the sale of our first home. Home prices in my area are very reasonable.

[MyThreeSons]

We had a bunch of equity from our house in CA. We paid cash for this house when we bought it -- the biggest check I've ever written, LOL. It was the quickest way to close on it.

 

Shortly afterward, though, we took out a small mortgage to pay off the credit cards, which we had used to buy two vehicles when we moved here. Backwards, but it worked for us. In essence, our mortgage was only about 15% of the purchase price.

[Element]

We are currently looking to buy and our CU requires 5% down. We will probably be putting 11-15% down.

[Tap]

20_30%

[Arcadia]

Spam by Martha639 reported

[Melissa in Australia]

OTHER where is the other??? We didn't put anything down on our home, because we didn't have a home. we had land, and camped on it for a year while we saved up and built a very small cottage by ourselves. We then added to the cottage as we could afford it. example: we lived without electricity for 3 years. Slowly and surely have build a beautiful palace.

[Guest]

When we were first time home buyers (2006), we put $0 down, and got a 6% interest rate (which was great at the time), 30 year loan - FHA program for first time buyers. This time around, we put 3.5% down (30 year loan and got a 3.25% interest rate, which is awesome)... still FHA, but since we were not first time home buyers, we had to put something down. With FHA, you have PMI, so that is the trade-off.

[Erin]

We paid cash for our current house, too. Of course, ours was only $500, so most people could have paid cash. ;)

However, we're paying cash as we go on the new house, too.

It's nearly dried in.

[planner]

We put 23% down on our first house. The house we are in now we put 64% down.

[Guest]

We paid cash for our current house, too. Of course, ours was only $500, so most people could have paid cash. ;)

However, we're paying cash as we go on the new house, too.

It's nearly dried in.

 

How'd you get a house for $500? :w00t:

[Erin]

It's an older, single-wide trailer house. It's still in perfectly good shape, but it's dated. ...And SMALL.

However, we bought it with the intention of being temporary while the new house is built, so it's working. :)

Besides, it was $500! lol

[Mona100]

I just bought a townhouse last month. I have a first time homeowner's FHA loan that required a 3% down payment but my state has a program were it will pay 2.5% of the down payment for youas a 2nd mortgage only a period of ten years. I went into closing expecting to write a check for less than $200 but for whatever reason got a check written to me for $77. They explained it to me but I still didn't get how that happened and the lender said she had only worked with this program for a short time. I told her if it comes back that I needed to pay back the $77 you know where to find me.

 

I also had the seller pay all closing costs but I had to agree to go up $2000 in the asking price. I am also paying PMI. Even with all the extra costs (PMI, 2nd mortgage), it is cheaper than the rent I was paying.

[Scarlett]

Paid cash.

 

I would not buy a house if my payment was more than 25 % of our net income or longer than 15 years. I hope to never have a mortgage again.

[Mom2OandE]

5 percent down, seller paid closing costs

[No More Perfect]

Thanks for all the answers and replies. I've learned quite a bit! Can I just say that first-time home buying is one of the scariest things I have ever considered?! LOL :scared:

[Erin]

Buy a $500 trailer house. It'll take all the fear away. ;)

[No More Perfect]

Buy a $500 trailer house. It'll take all the fear away. ;)

 

Hehe, yeah, I imagine that would. :laugh:

[Hoot]

We put down 30%. It was a good thing, our home was 100% paid off in our very early 30's. According to DH, we will live here until we die unless a lot of property falls in our laps.

[Venia]

0% down through the USDA Rural Development Program, but we covered closing costs. There is no "PMI", but there is a pretty small annual fee that is rolled into the monthly payments. I should add that this is our first home buying experience. It was a very stressful and frightening experience, but we would not change a thing. We love owning our own home.

[TrixieB]

20% down on my first home.

10% down on dh & my home. A year or so later the property values jumped so we refinanced to get rid of the PMI.