Meet the startups fighting Silicon Valley’s soaring housing costs

manch · November 7, 2017, 8:05am

Here it is:

The 20% mortgage down payment is all but dead Mortgage

For first-time home buyers, the challenge of coming up with a 20% mortgage down payment is often difficult enough to keep them out of the market. But the fact is, the 20% down payment is all but dead — and has been for quite some time, especially for first-time buyers. “It’s been my experience that about half of my clients know that there are loans and/or programs that require less than 20% down,” says Kris Lindahl, a real estate agent in Blaine, Minn. “The other half still think that they must have at least 20% down in order to qualify for a home mortgage.” But most people don’t put 20% down on a home, even though it’s the benchmark most often quoted by lenders and mortgage experts. More than 70% of noncash, first-time home buyers — and 54% of all buyers — made down payments of less than 20% over at least the last five years, according to the National Assn. of Realtors.