Saving for a house

[GenWhyJ]

Just out of curiosity I was wondering:

1. How large was your house deposit
2. Did you have the 20% or less, & pay LMI
3. How much did you save each pay
4. How long did it take you to accumulate enough in savings for your house deposit

Just trying to work out an average here, I know it varies substantially due to many factors though

[~bs]

Just out of curiosity I was wondering:

1. How large was your house deposit
2. Did you have the 20% or less, & pay LMI
3. How much did you save each pay
4. How long did it take you to accumulate enough in savings for your house deposit

Just trying to work out an average here, I know it varies substantially due to many factors though

1. 20% plus closing costs
2. It's PMI, not sure if that was a typo
3. The saving was done while I was attending college. I worked full time and attended school full time, lived at home with the parents, therefore most of my paychecks went to savings other than what I spent on food & gas. I also had the benefit of a stock market bull run which I was investing heavily into.
4. The 5 years it took me to get through school. I didn't attempt to buy immediately afterwards though. I rented for 2 years to get a feel for handling expenses on my own and determining what type of place I'd want to live in.

If you want numbers, I had around 100k in liquid assets, of which roughly 75k went towards the purchase, leaving me with 25k. And to be honest, at the time I wasn't 100% comfortable with only 25k post purchase either, as I didn't know the size of other expenses or other issues(place still needed to be furnished). Other miscellaneous fears came up about potential job loss, whether my income was adequate, whether i should be blowing through 5 years worth of savings in one shot, etc etc. But, from what I understand, these types of pre-purchase jitters are normal.

[kork13]

Just out of curiosity I was wondering:

1. How large was your house deposit
2. Did you have the 20% or less, & pay LMI
3. How much did you save each pay
4. How long did it take you to accumulate enough in savings for your house deposit

Just trying to work out an average here, I know it varies substantially due to many factors though

1. I put down about 25% plus $3k in closing costs (about $50k total).
2. I put down what I did to ensure no PMI, plenty of equity to start with, and lower monthly payments.
3./4. I started saving my junior year of college & worked/saved for 4 years after graduating before buying. However, my case is somewhat exceptional -- I had (have) a well paying job, very low expenses, & was saving over 40%-50% of my income. Most people cannot save that aggressively, so you shouldn't expect to be able to save a DP that quickly.

[MonkeyMama]

Just out of curiosity I was wondering:

1. How large was your house deposit
2. Did you have the 20% or less, & pay LMI
3. How much did you save each pay
4. How long did it take you to accumulate enough in savings for your house deposit

Just trying to work out an average here, I know it varies substantially due to many factors though

#1 & #2 - We put down exactly 20% on our first home. $52,000 down on a condo.

#3 & #4 - this is kind of a tricky one as we were in somewhat unique situation, but also planned ahead for many years. Basically, spouse had a rent-free situation and I rented a closet for about $500/month. The smallest of apartments was going to be about $1500/month when we married, and houses were $500k+ ($500k being an absolute shack). Very aware of the high cost of housing, we were planning and saving since about age 18. My spouse saved most his income and had amassed most the down payment. When we gardauted college we both saved about 70% of our incomes until we could pull together 20% down. In the end, it took us about 6 years to save, but only about one year once we got out of college and had good full-time jobs. WE also had some gifts, which maybe sped up our time table by about a year. We easily could have been in a situation where we were saving decades to own a home, so went to extreme saving measures. I wasn't quite sure how we'd be able to save up for a down payment once we moved in together and started paying those kind of rents. On the flip side, I doubt we ever would have bought so early on if we could have just rented reasonably and taken our time a bit. {In the end, we both got 70% raises very early on and I supposed we would have figured it out with renting. We did not expect to be making so much money so quickly, which was the plus side to living in such a pricey area. But I will never regret doing those big savings while our expenses were so small. IT was the best/easiest time to save for our future}.

[JoeP]

First house was about 20% down, and the second was about 35%.

It didn't take long, because we rolled equity from the first house into the second. But more importantly, we defined our requirements and price range before looking at homes.

[kork13]

But I will never regret doing those big savings while our expenses were so small. IT was the best/easiest time to save for our future}.

I just want to echo this. Saving early is so huge in terms of the influence it can have on your future. Not only do you have more money saved up sooner, but especially with investments, your money has more time for gains to compound. Plus, you get into the habit of saving before you make "the big bucks", so as your income increases over time, you are already in the mindset of saving. The importance of saving early really cannot be overstated.

[edg126]

10% + closing on $339,000 home bought in June 2012 (so 33.9K + ~15K I think).
The first month we spent an additional 10K on furniture, appliances, and lawncare.
Not through the first year yet and spent on our "move in ready" house about $6500 on electrical, a fence replaced, and some trees cut down. Along probably an additional $2000 for furnishing.
I'm pretty handy around the house and in good shape so I did a ton of manual labor type jobs outside and in that otherwise would have probably tacked on another 5K to pay someone to do.


Some background:
Our household income when we bought the house was 115K, now it's 134K.
I stopped contributing to my 401K when I was saving up -- I was with a company I knew I wasn't going to be staying with (hence why I'm making more now) and new I wouldn't vest in their match. Now I'm back to putting a little more than I should to catch up.
I moved back in with my parents over that time period and basically banked all of my pay.
We have 12K in debt (2K student loan, 10K car loan), well, plus the 300K mortgage now.
I also expect this to be the home we live in for the rest of our lives so I'm willing to put the money for quality improvements that'll last longer since I'll be here to make use of it.
My wife is also pregnant and expecting TWINS, so more expenses will be coming.


Oh, and with Mortgage, PMI, Taxes, and Insurance I pay ~$2160 a month, and it doesn't hurt us at all. I was paying ~1000 for rent a month and my wife 700 when we were dating, so it's not that far off. When we are paying for daycare for 2 kids + diapers and formula we'll probably feel it, but we are saving and paying off debt like crazy.

[~bs]

I just want to echo this. Saving early is so huge in terms of the influence it can have on your future. Not only do you have more money saved up sooner, but especially with investments, your money has more time for gains to compound. Plus, you get into the habit of saving before you make "the big bucks", so as your income increases over time, you are already in the mindset of saving. The importance of saving early really cannot be overstated.

Agreed, it's WAY easier when you don't have "life expenses" - mortgage, large rent, kids, etc. Sure you may be grossing more income later on in life, but you also tend to have much higher non-discretionary expenses. When I see kids nowadays (late teens & 20s) blowing their money on gadgets, clothes, and cars, i feel somewhat sorry for them, as they're wasting a golden opportunity to begin to secure their financial future.

[GenWhyJ]

Thanks for the insight everyone.
It sounds like you all had the goal of home ownership at quiet a young age, as I do. You all seem to have gathered quiet a large sum for your deposit In a remarkable timeframe, I find this inspiring. Reading your experiences just motivates me to reach my goal sooner. I would like to elaborate on everyone's response, However my main hand is broken and I'm finding it difficult using the one finger to type.
Will do so another time.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

20% like MM and I agree the time to live poorly is when you are young. We haven't really changed much since college and it's served us well. I think our down payment was $30K plus closing. Since having real jobs we've max out retirement accounts for 6 years from 2006 to 2012 and have I believe almost $400k in retirement along with our 20% on our second home we bought at $120k DP.

When we bought in 2005 our income was $120k and now I think we're at $175k. FWIW after having two kids we haven't really changed our spending. Same house, same utilities, and the extra income we've saved. I will say that from $120k from two incomes to $175k one income it's been interesting. We live on our paycheck which is $124k solo and save the rest of the bonuses. It's just free money. So we literally are living on the same 6 years later and two kids.

[Caoineag]

I am a bit of an outlier here. We had saved well over 10% but bought during the credit crunch so the cheapest option for mortgages at the time was FHA with 3.5% down and we had to move, otherwise we would have waited another year for 20%. We would only do a 15 year mortgage though so knew we would catch up quickly on equity. We spent $20k our first year in repairs and other necessaries and refinanced 1 1/2 years later into a conventional 15 year with 30% equity. I am a big fan of 20%, especially since they have made PMI a lot more expensive now then when we did it but we went into the house buying wanting a fixer upper in a rising neighborhood so we could build equity fast.

[theduc]

Just out of curiosity I was wondering:

1. How large was your house deposit
2. Did you have the 20% or less, & pay LMI
3. How much did you save each pay
4. How long did it take you to accumulate enough in savings for your house deposit

Just trying to work out an average here, I know it varies substantially due to many factors though

1. I put %20 down on my first two houses and almost 70% on my third (condo).
2. I've never paid PMI
3. Enough to add extra principal to my regular payments on each house/condo (even if it was only $20/month... currently $1,200/month with a goal to pay off the mortgage in less than 3 years). Every little bit counts...
4. First house took maybe around a year or two... but I was much younger and making a LOT less at my first job just out of school and paying off a student loan as well. Second and third down payments were %95 from the sale of the previous house/condo and a little from savings.

[syracusa]

Just out of curiosity I was wondering:

1. How large was your house deposit
2. Did you have the 20% or less, & pay LMI
3. How much did you save each pay
4. How long did it take you to accumulate enough in savings for your house deposit

Just trying to work out an average here, I know it varies substantially due to many factors though

1. We have 70,000 right now, we will have about 100,000 by the time we buy, probably in November.
2. We plan on putting down at least 20%.
3. We are trying between 3000-4000, but it varied some from month to month.
4. Not sure because we had major ups and downs during the recession, including a short sale and cross-country relocation and back with out of pocket expenses.