Home owner question!

kaesha · April 2010

How much (%) did you put down on your home? I really, REALLY want to avoid paying the mortgage insurance - but that means putting down 20% in Ontario... which is insane given prices in Toronto (in my area, the AVERAGE cost of a home is 690,000$ - and really, we're talking semi-detached homes).

redshoegirl · April 2010

We put down 5%, so we ended up paying PMI. I know there are people who would argue that we never should have bought with such a low deposit, but I have no regrets. 10% down would have been nicer, and of course 20% ideal, but real estate is expensive in Australia (even where we live, which isn't in a major city) and there is just no way that we could have put down 20% unless we wanted to buy a studio apartment hovel.

MauiWedding08 · April 2010

there is no way we could have saved a 20% down payment in the next couple of years considering the cost of houses around here.

I actually qualified for a home ownership program that doesn't require PMI so I can't really say what I would do... I guess it adds up but at the same time the tax benefit is great and we feel really happy about knowing we can stay put for a long time

lelekay · May 2010

MH bought our house just before we met, and I believe he put down about 10%.

liubride510 · May 2010

We put down 3.5% there's no way we would have been able to afford 10% down and still have money in our savings account. We even sold our condo and didn't have enough for a 10% down. Not to mention 95% of the homes in our area are 40+ years old so we wanted to have enough money for home improvements.

annasan_k · May 2010

For both the house I bought when I was single and the house MH and I bought together right before we were married, I/we did an 80-10-10 loan (that's 10% down and two loans - one loan was an equity loan). In both cases I/we didn't have to pay mortgage insurance. We were fortunate enough to be able to pay off the one 10% loan in a little over a year. I would talk to your lender to see if they have any packages that allow you to avoid MI and not have to cough up the 20% down. good luck!

mrspresley · May 2010

we had all sorts of issues come up with our mortgage when we bought our home but you don't need to hear about that mess! when we put down the offer on the house we were prepared to put down 20%.

Surfinbride · May 2010

I'm a firm believer in putting 20% down. I lived in apartments for many years while I put aside $. My thought was if I couldn't save the 20%, I had no business having a house. It made me feel confident that I could responsibly put aside a cushion fund. I would be very uncomfortable with less. We see it so often in the news where people lose their house... or owe more than it is worth. The banks and mortgage companies will kill you on interest. Run the #s. It makes sense to put down as much as you can. Otherwise, you are just paying interest.

vanilla15 · May 2010

We put down 3% - they have a lot of first time home buyer programs here that we were able to qualify for, which allowed for the small down payment. And while we could have used every last penny in savings and borrowed some from our parents it made no sense (to us, at least) to put down 20%. You still have a 30 year mortgage in front of you. We do pay PMI now, but we bought a flooded house that had been gutted so the value of our house when we purchased is wwwaaayyy less than what it is worth now that we have fixed it up. Our loan officer & real estate agent told us to have the house reappraised & then we would have plenty enough in equity to now get rid of the PMI. I am not sure if that would work in a non-devastated area, but just fyi...

Home owner question!

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