By Andrea Riquier | MarketWatch
Only slight move in percentage of equity paid by new home owners
First the good news: down payments among first-time homebuyers are getting slightly bigger.
Now the not-so-good news: that’s not saying much.
In 2009, when the National Association of Realtors started tracking such data in its monthly Realtors Confidence Index, nearly three-quarters of first-timers made down payments of between 0% and 6% of the purchase price. In February, only 65% did
By that metric, any down payment not in the 0-6% range is bigger, and therefore probably better both for the system and for most individual buyers. But just barely: the median among first-timers in 2016 was 6%, according to separate data NAR tracks. Among all buyers, the median is 10%.
