What is that average down payment on houses these days? I know it used to be 20%, but with so many new creative loan options, longer mortgages, and much more expensive housing, has it gone down a bit?

Most housing in my immediate area is in the 400-600k range, are these people really people putting 80-120k down?

In Canada you can get away with 5% down. In the are I am in the average house is between 250-300k range. An hour drive away and it is around 400k.

Real Estate is absolutely out of control these days. My wife and I are in the process of buying our first home. The purchase price is 465,000. We put 10% down and are taking a 2nd mortgage right out of the gate so we do not have to pay the PMI. We are going with fixed rate mortgages because we cannot afford any surprises down the road with the amount of money that we are borrowing.

Mike

nearly 10-15% here in the UK

Is 5% the average, or is it just a very low-end figure? There are s many different financing options these days, some people are even putting 0% down.

It used to be 10% but the government brought in legislation years ago to bring it to 5% down payment so yes I guess that would be the average now. I am not sure about the 0% down, but there is a program for new home owners (at least in Ontario) to help them save for their first house. Once they purchase there is a way to enter this on you yearly tax return, so the actual percentage may be lower.

I was fortunate when I bought mine, it still needed to be built so I just paid monthly until I moved in and that was equivalent to 5% down. The best part was the 5% was paid of with no interest charges added on top.

If you have the credit, you can get away with taking out a second to pay your down on your first, reducing the amount you have to put down since you only have to put a down on the second....

Taz

Most lenders won't go below 5% from what i've seen, and most require you to have a monthly income of at least 3x your monthly house payment. 20% is not a requirement at all. You only need to make a down payment of at least 20% to avoid the additional PMI charges which is a pure waste of money for extra insurance. Most people end up paying PMI though since they can't afford to pay 20% up front.

You're right. PMI is a waste of money. I'm actually getting a house now for 0%. I'm getting one loan for 80% and another for 20% to avoid PMI. I didn't have any money to put down anyway. People usually have the money to put down the 20% from the sale of their current house. If you bought a house here in FL a couple of years ago, the property value shot up so much that people are sitting on a bunch of equity. If only I would have listened to the people telling me to buy a house back then... Anyway, I started working as a loan officer recently. There are a lot of programs out there that people qualify for when they put 20% down and have decent credit. But there are definitely other loans you can get with only 5 or 10% down or even 0 if your credit is good. If anyone is looking into buying a house or refinancing let me know. I'll be happy to help.