How Much Down Payment Do I Need and How Do I Get It?

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With housing prices having crashed in most of the higher cost areas of the country, many people who were formerly priced completely out of the market have become interested once again in purchasing property. The drawback is that because lenders are scared of zero down payment programs right now, if you haven't got a down payment you are just as solidly locked out of property as if you could not afford the payment. So I thought I'd go over the down payment requirements for purchasing real estate. Keep in mind as you read that these are minimums. If you have more of a down payment, that's better. You cut the amount you need to borrow, thereby cutting the payment and increasing affordability still more, and you also likely improve the loan you are eligible for.

More mortgage insurance companies are becoming willing to go 95% loan to value ratio, but the catch is they want to see at least a decent credit score (680+, with the best rates not coming until 740 or so) and a slightly lower debt to income ratio than if you had a larger down payment. If this isn't you, I would plan on having 10% of the purchase price for a down payment with conventional conforming loans - especially if you want to split your loan to avoid PMI. On a $400,000 property, 10% is $40,000, which is quite a chunk of change for most folks. This is the "no government involvement necessary" loan, up to $417,000 of loan amount (not purchase price, a critical distinction to make!). If you're putting 10% down on a $450,000 property, what you have is a conventional loan amount - $405,000 - not nonconforming, but a full on conforming loan, assuming you qualify on the basis of credit score debt to income ratio and loan to value ratio.

95% financing for conventional loans has become more available, making it more likely to work. When all that's available is one program from one lender, it can be withdrawn at any time, or you can fail to qualify, and that's it. Things that only one lender offers can vanish at any time, and there is no Plan B. If that lender pulls the program while we're in escrow, that's not Monopoly Money my clients are risking. But when there's multiple lenders and a couple different insurers, that's less likely to vanish like faerie gold. 5% of $400,000 is $20,000, which is a lot easier to get than $40,000.

FHA loans now require a 3.5% down payment as opposed to 3%. On a $400,000 property, that's $14,000. On the plus side, the funding fee (Currently 1.75 points) can now be added back in to the loan amount, yielding a 98.25% loan to value ratio when everything is said and done, but you need a 3.5% actual down payment or the deal is off. Furthermore, they have a financing insurance charge of 0.5 or 0.55% on top of your note rate, but better to pay the charge and get the loan you need than not pay the charge and not get the loan.

VA loans really have become the magic bullet. Not only do they not require a down payment at all, but closing costs of the loan (including the VA Funding Fee, if it applies) can be rolled into the loan on top of the purchase price. Furthermore, there's no financing insurance charge, and only very minimal loan adjustments, if any at all.

The good news, to counterbalance the increased down payment requirements, is that prices are much lower. The bad news is that if you wait for the lenders to lower down payment requirements again, prices will be much higher then. You see, it's the difficulty in finding people who can get a down payment that is partially fueling the fall in prices. They're not going to stay this low when that changes.

So how do you take advantage now? Where can you get the money for a down payment quickly?

I'll skim over the obvious and simple candidates: Savings, investment accounts, sell some of your stuff. If you have a spare Ferrari lying around you're not using, that's probably a peachy down payment for just about anything. Just because folks were all wanting to buy without a down payment, to the point where it became unusual for folks to actually have a down payment there for several years, does not mean that doing so is in any way mandatory. But if you are in one of these categories, you probably don't need to hear me tell you that money you have stashed away could be used for a down payment for the purchase of real estate. I'll bet you can figure it out on your own.

So let's look at the non-obvious ways.

Let's start at the least painful, at least personally: Retirement accounts. The tax code allows you to withdraw up to $10,000 from certain IRAs for the purpose of a down payment (talk with your accountant for details). Put two spouses together, and you've got $20,000. That may have been only 3% when properties were $600,000, but when the property is $300,000, $20,000 is almost 7 percent - more than enough for an FHA loan or even traditional financing now that PMI companies are back at 95% financing.

Second option: 401k and its siblings and cousins 403b, 401b, 457, etcetera. These are group retirement plans where you cannot withdraw the contributions for so long as you work for the company, government, or non-profit. But the majority of these have plan documents that allow those who have previously contributed to take out loans from their balance in the plan and repay those loans from future contributions. Let's say you've contributed $30,000 which has grown to $50,000. The mechanics do vary, but if you take a $30,000 loan and repay it $200 every two weeks from your normal 401 contribution, that's mostly a wash in most cases. Be careful for rules on interest rate charged and method of repayment, but the federal government's Thrift Savings Plan (among many other employer sponsored plans) allows loans for this purpose. Meanwhile, your original contributions may even continue growing. Once again, it depends upon your plan document and everything it lays out. There is a drawback: If you leave that employer, the loan may become immediately due and payable, or it may be converted into a heavily taxed withdrawal. Again, consult an accountant for details

If your family (or your spouse's family) wants to give you a gift for the down payment, that works. FHA rules specifically allow up to a 6% gift from family members, VA rules are similar even though they don't require a down payment, and even conventional lenders make it easy enough to use family gifts for a down payment. This may seem like a no-brainer, but many times Junior wants so much to do it on their own without help, that they refuse to see a very obvious solution even though it is the best and most painless way under the circumstances. You can always save up the money to pay them back even though it was a gift. Just because it's a gift doesn't mean you can't give them a gift back later; it just means that it cannot be a loan masquerading as a gift.

Many locally based first time buyer programs exist. There programs lend (not grant) you the money for a down payment. In some cases, 20% or more of the purchase price. Most of these take the form of a "silent second" mortgage where there are no payments due, and it you hang onto the property for a certain amount of time, the loans can even be forgiven. The drawbacks are several, but the usual elephant in the room is that these programs run out of money at Warp Speed every time they get a new allocation. I've heard of people who had tried three, four or more times at intervals separated by six months and still couldn't get into these programs due to budget limitations. It can be very difficult to get in on these programs. I applied for one back in April for some clients. Despite the fact that we were less than two weeks out of the starting gate from when the budget allocation had been received, there was nothing left in the program. So even though your loan person may be eager to participate in such a program, the fact that your application is competing with those of many other people may preclude it actually happening.

The final possibility is a personal loan. These can be either from banks and credit unions issuing a fully underwritten loan with market rate interest, or from family members deciding to make a below-market rate loan based upon the fact that they like you. Lenders take a truly large number of precautions to prevent the down payment money from being borrowed unbeknownst to them, but a fully disclosed personal loan, not secured against the title of the property, is perfectly acceptable in most cases. If does impact debt to income ratio, because you've got to make payments on the personal loan as well as the real estate loan, so it does constrict what you could conceivably afford in the way of purchase price. On the other hand, it does put the purchase money in your bank account today, when you need it, rather than two years from now, when there is an excellent chance prices will be much higher by then.

So there you have them, half a dozen possible ways to get a down payment quickly, while it really makes a difference to the home you can afford the payments for because prices are down. Which they are, in part, because people with down payments available to them are so difficult to find. If you need a down payment to buy and neither these not any other method of acquiring one will work, you're just going to have to wait it out until the guidelines are relaxed, or until you do manage to save up the money for the required down payment.

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Dan Melson published on May 2, 2021 7:00 AM.

VA Loans Have Become The Magic Bullet was the previous entry in this blog.

If You Need A Loan To Buy A Home, You Need A 60 Day Escrow is the next entry in this blog.

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