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I put 10% down, which my parents gifted to me. It was only $7,000 because I got probably the best deal ever on my house. I don't have PMI because I got 2 mortgages (not exactly sure how it works, but I'm glad I don't have to have the extra insurance!).
$7000 for 10% sounds like a great deal! Here even condos can go for more than that. I looked, the average price is $379000 and we may also be looking at a city that's more expensive.
We put 20% down.. which amounted to about 90k (we're also in Canada and bought downtown Toronto). It makes me ill thinking about how expensive property is, but we need a place to live and for us, the costs/benefits of owning outweighed renting.
holy cow! How in the world did you guys save that much (how long did it take?)...?! FI and I are in no way ready to buy a house financially-he just graduated, Im still in school, paid for all ourselves and now paying for our wedding! Im proud of where we are but it seems like forever until we will be able to buy a house!
@MissDW: Exactly what I'm thinking.. How long did it take to save 20%?!
We bought our house for a great deal at the time but still needed $7500 down.... The owner was an older man who just wanted to sell and it was all pocket money for him so he was willing to come down a lot on the price.... We are in VT and idk how the market is in other places but here it kinda sucks :( we definitely got lucky
FI had 20% down which for his place a few years ago was about 40k.
Just a FYI, you don't need 20% for a mortgage, it's only to avoid CMHC fees which are calculated based on your loan to value ratio. (http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/moloin/moloin_005.cfm ) Of course it's good to have 20% down but depending on the market it's not always very likely.
I always, always encourage clients to go to their bank and speak with a mortgage broker. I think it's a great idea to get a pre-approval even a year before you're ready to buy. It gives you a good idea of what the banks think you can afford and helps you to plan how much more you need to save.
@Ms. Martian: Great advice ! Yes that was our incentive on putting over 20% down ...and it was just always the plan / the downpayment 'fund'
@Ms. Martian: Is conventional mortage not the right term if you have 20%? I knew you could get it with less than that, but didn't know about CMHC (I just knew there were fees).
We won't even bother with the pre-approval until I'm done school. That date is very much in the air until I start writing, and then we have to figure out what city!
I'm surprised at the number of you who actually paid 20%, I thought it would be less! Ideally that's what I would like to do, but am not too sure how doable that will be.
We put down 20% because in Canada, if you put down 20% or more, you avoid paying extra money to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation for mortgage insurance.
We put down 20%. The more we put down, the better rate we got, but we couldn't really afford more (especially with the wedding, money is tight!). We're pretty traditional, too, and 20% is the classic answer, I think. My parents put 20% on their first house, his parents put 20% on their first house, etc., etc. Plus, no PMI!
We're looking to buy in the next 6 months or so and depending on exactly what/where we end up, it will likely be 15-20% down.
ETA: I'd like it to be 20% but we'd be looking to be in this home for a while so we'd be willing to pay PMI for a short period to get in to a better home for us and our needs.
If we were going to be under 20%, we'd also look into a "piggyback" loan to avoid PMI and pay off that smaller, secondary loan quickly so we'd be left with just the main mortgage.
@AB Bride: I'm not sure how it differnt from US/Candad or even from state to state, but from my understanding to qualify as a conventional loan, the mortgage has to be under a certain amount depending on the county your property is. I only know about MA, but in MA, my loan would have to be under about 523k in Middlesex county to quality as conventional and get a lower rate. In Worcester country the cut off is about 410k. If its more than those amounts its a jumbo loan with a higher rate.
@AB Bride: Sorry, you're right it wouldn't be a conventional mortgage in that sense since you're paying the CMHC fees when you have less than 20% down. Doesn't really affect mortgage terms and what you're able to get in terms of interest rates etc. from a bank though.
The CMHC fees are tacked onto your mortgage anyway so it really depends on how much you're missing and how much your fees would be. Sometimes it makes sense to just pay the fees because you would end up paying the same in rent in the time it takes to save up the remainder.
We're saving now and hoping to put close to 20% down. The houses we're looking at are in the 300's.... I feel like everything is so expensive on the east coast! :/ we're in Wilmington, DE. Anyway, we're about halfway there, so we have some time to go.... maybe by this spring/ summer.
@Ms. Martian: Thanks! I've got a lot to learn before I get a pre-approval. I'm not bad with money or anything, but there's a lot I could learn about finances. Luckily for me, DH knows quite a bit.
I qualified for a 0% down payment because I was a teacher in the area and a first time home buyer. I thought that was great at the time, but now that the housing market has crashed I can't sell or even refinance because I still owe more than what my house appraises for. I don't suggest going the no down payment route!
@MCC919: lol, where i live 300,000 is damn near impossible to find. even basic neighborhoods start at 400-500k, and condos don't sell for less than that.
We purchased our home 6 months ago. Put 3.5% down with the FHA loan. We do pay PMI unless you are putting 20% down then I believe you dont pay that. Mortgage rates are at it's lowest so we were lucky to get a low rate. We are happy home owners :)
We put 40something down, I don't remember exactly. Our house was 530,000 and we put 235,000 or something.
since in Canada you the need the 20% to avoid insurance, we're going to end up doing a 5% first time homebuyer downpayment.
Going anywhere between 5% and 19.99% makes no sense as you would be paying insurance regardless. So we decided that unless we can do 20% we will do 5%. Which considering housing costs in toronto, will still be around the 20K mark. :( and nothing fancy mind you, just enough to be able to start a family.
I have no desire to pay PMI.
At the prices we are talking about around here in the Bay Area it makes something go from reasonable to "HOLY MOLY I cant afford that"
FI and I qualified for the VA Loan and put 0% down. It really works for us because we didn't have to pay the funding fee or PMI. We paid $485k for our home and it would have taken us 3-5 yrs to save 20%. Our monthly mortgage is the same as the rent we were paying.
We didn't put anything down (we bought four years ago before the shit hit the fan with the economy).
I don't know much about this yet either but were going to start looking at houses again once the wedding is over. We want to move now but the stress and extra cash is just too much. Were going to try to do as little down as possible because we have a lot to do in our condo (fixing things) before we move. We'll be looking for a house that's around $115,000 or less for the 3 bedrooms, basement and a yard were looking for which I'm surprised is pretty common for that price around here. I think we may be able to put down $5000. We almost took the plunge for a house that had been reduced over and over and only cost $39,000... some days I wish I would have. =/
We can get the VA loan too I forgot about that. =)
We put 10% down on our condo... yes we pay a PMI, but it makes sense to.us because we kept that extra 10% as liquid!
@bride2bejc: HI i see that you are from NYC, so am I. do you mind if i ask if you bought your condo in the NYC area? are there properties that accept 10% down? I keep hearing in the NYC area, manhattan and better areas in the boroughs, anything less than 20% will not be accepted!!
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I'm not even looking at getting a preapproval yet, so I have a lot to learn! I'm just curious what your downpayment was. Here, a conventional mortage requires a downpayment of at least 20%. That sounds like quite a bit (especially with housing costs here!) for a first home. I have no idea if we'll be able to do that when it comes time to buy, but we have some savings at least!