S/O - Did you have help coming up with a downpayment?

[K1329]

The thread about how old you were when you bought your first home surprised me. I am surprised that so many were in the early or mid 20's when they purchased their first home. No matter what age you were when you purchased, did you have help coming up with the downpayment? Or, not? Dh and I had help - we were gifted a 20% downpayment by my parents. I was 25 and dh was 27. I hope to be able to help my own two kiddos one day, too!

[beebalmmama]

No, we went with a 0% down payment option. We were well within our limits of what we could afford and had a $600 mortgage payment. I wish we were still in that situation!! But we did make some money from selling that house. I just wish we could have saved some of the windfall for another home. Dh had some pretty large debt that we paid off after we finished school.

Now we're in a situation where we don't have a down payment for our next home. But then I'm comfortable buying a house with less than 20% down. Partly because I'll be finishing up SAHMing in the next year or so and will hopefully be seeing a substantial increase in our income potential once I'm done with school. Currently we will be buying again well within our means on a single income.

[Juvysen]

No, we put 5% down, live in a low cost of housing area (our house was $112k) and Dh made a very good starting wage (he's a computer software engineer).  We were 22 ... wait, maybe 23.  We went for a 15 year loan, and it was tight for the first couple years, but now we're 7 years in and almost halfway through our loan.

[happysmileylady]

No, DH was in the military so we got a VA loan with 0% down

[kanga1622]

No. We did a mortgage for first time buyers so we paid 3% down plus closing costs. I would have loved to have a bigger down payment but in the end decided that, for us, getting out of slum lord rentals into the one decent house we could find in our price range was worth taking the "risk." We've always paid more than the minimum payment and have no other debt so our budget is pretty stable and we are set to pay off the mortgage in 22 (only 17 left!) years unless we get some more money to throw at the mortgage. I try to send in 3-4 extra payments a year to really cut down on the total interest paid.

[Sarah W]

Originally Posted by happysmileylady 

No, DH was in the military so we got a VA loan with 0% down

This is what we've done with both of our homes.

 

[delightedbutterfly]

I didn't post in the other thread but yes.

I was 21 and DH was 24 and we had just had our first child when we moved into our first place (a condo). We put 35% down. I had been gifted a large sum of money in the form of shares when I turned 19 by a great uncle and I used some of those and then my parents "matched" what I put towards the house as well. So I put half down and my parents put the other half down.

Just before I turned 24 and when DH was 27 and I was pregnant with our second we moved into our second place (a house). We had made money on the condo and put a larger sum but a little lesser percentage down on the house.

My parents offered the help, I never would have asked (I barely took it, I prefer to be stubborn and independant). And it has always been a verbal "pay it back when the mortgage is over" but honestly I doubt they ever expect it, or want it back. However it has always been our intention to pay it back. And if we were ever to recieve a large windfall or win the lottery that would be the first cheque I would write.

We live in a VERY HIGH COL are and we would never be able to afford rent in a place large enough to accomodate our family. We are lucky that with that help we are able to have (and afford) our own place and live in this city. I guess it is also a bit selfish on my parents part, as otherwise we would have had to move away to a lower COL place where DH could make more money ;)

[seashells]

We put 5% down and didn't have any help - unless you count some cash gifts (a few hundred dollars in total) that we got for our wedding and banked for this specific purpose (we didn't ask for it and none of the gifts specified any purpose, it was just some checks we got).

[carfreemama]

Yes, we got help from my DH parents. We didn't "need" it, but it meant we could buy the house we wanted in a neighbourhood we really liked, with a super school. We had been saving for 10 years, though and had lots of money for a downpayment already. Our in-laws were impressed with how frugal we had been and wanted to match our downpayment. However, they also gave the same amount of money to DH's sister, though she was not yet ready to buy a house. It was one of those "you either get it now or when we're gone" situations. We LOVE our house. It isn't big or renovated; but it's an older home, very well built and perfect for our family. I am very grateful to them and like a pp, I hope to pass along this kind of gift to our dd someday. In fact, this very house will probably be hers since we never, ever plan to leave it.

[Poddi]

Well, we used all our wedding gift money towards the down payment.    It probably accounted for 1/2 of our small down payment.  Does that count as "family help"?  I know loads of people would have got new furniture, computers or a fancier honeymoon with their wedding gifts.   At the time we both had only been out of school for less than a year, paying off student loans and debts we owed family while job hunting.  That's why we haven't saved up enough down payment by our wedding.   We'd have been able to save up that amount in a few more months anyway.

[monkey's mom]

Yes, both our parents gave us money for our downpayment. We couldn't have done it without their help.

[maptome]

We were 25 and 26.  We had  rented 1/1s for 5 years, not because we didn't have the money, but because we didn't have the stability to buy.  When we finally found a time in our lives to buy, we had enough for a 20% down payment.  In fact, we had enough in investments to buy the house in cash.  (We bought in 2007, and in hindsight, we should have cashed out stocks and paid cash.)

[heatherdeg]

I didn't post in the other thread, either; but we've never had help.  I think the first house, we put 5% down and honestly I'm not sure we've EVER put more down even when we had it.  That being said, this is the first year we're buying property since the abolishment of "piggyback loans" (where you shell out 5%, take a 15% home equity loan and then a mortgage for the other 80% to avoid PMI).  So we did buy one house with 5% down because we were planning on buying another one that we needed to reserve our money for.  And we only did that because we paid $159k for a house that appraised at $194k--so the equity was there.

ETA: I was 26 when we bought our first house (dh was 27).  I was going to buy it on my own, but the whole thing prompted him to propose earlier than he planned because I didn't want him on the deed without being married (and I was fine not being married) and he didn't expect that response.  He thought I would be fine and he could propose as we ate pizza in our new house after the closing.  I sure know how to completely screw a guys plans up, hunh?  :)  

Edited by heatherdeg - 3/16/11 at 11:39pm

[EviesMom]

Hmm. We must have been 26 actually. We paid 1/2 the downpayment and borrowed 1/2 from parents. Then we paid them back over the next 2-3 years. 

[texmati]

no... we were 26 and put 20% down. BUT, we live in a low col, and I lived with my parents in between college and marrying dh.

[Sharlla]

if we were going to go fha like we were going to then we wouldnt need help.  DH was stupid enough to cosign for his x's student loan so they were using that payment as part of his debt to income ratio.  so even though we had been preapproved for more than what we offered on the house we found out later they would only approve 39k so we had to come up with the difference.  DH'd dad gave us 13K to make up the difference, if he hadn't we would have had to wait another 6 months to buy a house (so we could put the student loan in deferment)

[Sharlla]

oh and the first house I bought with x we paid cash for, so no down payment. 

[JesKace]

Sorry, I didn't reply to the other thread either...

We were 21 when we bought our first house.  We didn't have any help, no one in our family was in any position to help us.  Both our parents never even owned a home until after we bought our first house...

I was pregnant and DH didn't want to raise the baby in the dump of an apartment we lived in....lol  He said he wanted to have a house before we had a kid, so we went looking for houses.  This was in Dec '03 when it was really easy to get a loan and we ended up getting a 0% down FHA loan.  The way it was set up was there was a secondary loan with it that covered a 5% down payment.  It was totally forgivable if we stayed in the house for something like 10 years and we wouldn't have to pay any of it back.... It was a pretty cool deal.  But the interest rate on our mortgage was really high so 6 months later we refinanced and got a much lower rate.  Since we had to pay back that other loan, we just rolled it right into the re-fi and our mortgage payment was still cheaper!  We lucked out and sold that house for $30,000 more than we paid for it, a year and a half later.  For our 2nd (current) house even with the $30,000 we made from the first house we didn't have enough to put the 20% down to avoid PMI, so we only put down something like $10,000 and used the rest to pay off some debt, and closing costs.  When we bought this house we got a basic 30/yr fixed at a good rate.  We're now 5 1/2 years in...  I see us staying put for a while till the market hopefully comes back a little so we can sell for a good price and move somewhere with more land.  If it doesn't come back for a long long time, I'm more than content staying in our current house :)

[amma_mama]

We did not have any help as neither of our parents were in a position to do so. We live in a high COL area and DH went back to school so we were on one income for several years, before and after DD was born. During his last year of his dissertation, I took an overseas assignment so that we could have a lot of cash in a short time (we got free housing for 2 years plus extra allowances and a huge tax break). After two years, we were able to save enough for our downpayment which was still well below 20% but enough to be approved.

[SunRise]

I sort of had help. I was receiving a bonus from work (5000.00) which would almost cover a 5% downpayment. I live in a low cost of living for houses - the house was 114,000. I had the rest saved (closing costs, and a bit more for the downpayment.)  But the mortgage I had had to have me prove that it was my own money and not gifted. I sold that house for 128,000 a few years later, just before the housing crash. The selling price was higher then the asking price due to a small bidding war.

I was able to purchase my next home with the profit I made, although the next home cost much less - 85,000. Housing prices are decent in my town, but the taxes on the property are the highest for the value of home in the US. I pay 4000 in taxes a year for this 85,000 dollar home, so I looked for a lower price.  Most houses in my neighbourhood are between 110,000 - 160,000 (for a 100 year old home). But the taxes on those prices would be closer to 6000+. My friends who live in bigger cities (Toronto, Victoria), say my home would cost 500,000 in their cities!