We are doing 3.5% FHA. I know that is a no no to many, but it works for us. We are going to get an awesome interest rate and the housing prices seem to have it bottom, so we are not waiting to buy until we have 20% saved in VHCOL area. Plus this will most likely be our forever home, so we really wanted to lock in a great interest rate and start building equity.
It is nice that this worked out in your unique situation, but it is a pretty safe bet that waiting a year or more to save 20% rather than 10% will mean buying at a time when interest rates are much higher than they are today.
Maybe. But people have been saying that "rates will go up soon and we'll never see such low rates again" for a decade. If they ever actually do, home prices are going to have to come down a lot in response, which is also good for those waiting to buy and saving up cash.
If we had waited until we had 20%, we would have gotten lower interest rates AND lower prices
On my first house I put down 20% on the second it was 40%, I used the proceeds from the sale of house 1 toward some of the downpayment on house 2 so I could up the %age I put down.
Depends on where we buy at. Downtown in our city we have 20% saved right now, if we buy in the suburbs, it's closer to 40%. We are not buying though because we are not sure if this is going to be a long-term city for us. (MCOL)
Post by dr.girlfriend on Aug 24, 2012 14:00:09 GMT -5
We technically did 20% down, but 10% was from savings and 10% was a loan from my father's trust that we are paying back at the same rate and terms as our primary mortgage. Good deal for him and for us.
Post by whitepicketfence on Aug 24, 2012 14:07:55 GMT -5
We put down 5% on our current home, LCOL area. We weren't planning on buying when we did but a great opportunity came up and we jumped on it. When we refi'd this past December, we had enough equity to drop PMI.
3.5% FHA in LCOL. Bank determined the rate we could get after looking at our app once we had picked out a house and all. Sucks because (after appraisal) we found out with that 3.5% we have over 17% equity but have to pay PMI for a certain number of years anyway with FHA.