How much to put down on a home?

[MonkeyMama]

gamecock - I revised my first post. I was looking at this thread today and I was like, huh? We didn't put down 30%. It was 25% the second time. Just FYI. We could have done 30% but preferred having liquidity at that point in our lives.

[Fern]

I put down 45% on a house 13 years ago with a purchase price of $209,900, so that's $94,000. I saved my money by paying cheap rent in my sister's basement apartment for several years to do that.

For me, it was DEFINITELY worth it becus i've always had a relatively modest income and so i wanted to be SURE i would never have trouble making my monthly mortgage payments, so they needed to be small.

doing this has allowed me to pursue jobs i truly enjoy over the ensuing years rather than being forced to stick with a job i hate becus i have to pay the bills.

Of course, it also allowed me to avoid paying for private mortgage insurance (PMI).

[Madwand]

5% Down

I believe everyone should put 5% down or more and this should be required by all banks.

But I also feel that if Uncle Charlie wants to give them the down payment then that should be allowed too.

Zero down loans killed our housing market.

Hey if you got nothing invested in it then it makes it real easy to just walk away.

[bjl584]

20% down. 15 yr fixed mortgage. No regrets.

[Troyrb]

20% on a 20yr fixed and put 20k in improvements such as adding a second bath and new siding during the first year.

[TBH]

20 percent down, 20 year fixed, and 20K in improvements in the first year for us also.

I don't regret putting down 20 percent. We could have put more down, but we needed a lot of liquid cash because the house was in such bad shape. Also, we had a new baby and I was looking for work.

If I were going to move up (which I'm still thinking about because I was just reading another thread about that) I'd want to do an 80-10-10 loan, if such a thing was even possible in this credit climate.

That way I could put 10% down, and not be forced to sell my current house quickly and cheaply. I could take my time selling it, and as soon as it sold I could pay off the second mortgage and have a normal 80% loan.