What’s the average down payment on a house?

When it comes down to it, the dollar amount you need to save will depend on the house you want to buy, as well as your other debt obligations and priorities. The minimum down payment for a house also depends on the type of loan and the lender’s requirements. Conventional loans (which are loans that aren’t guaranteed by the federal government) can have down payments as low as 3% for qualified buyers. 

I took a completely unscientific, unofficial survey of 5 of my good friends who are all in their early thirties and have bought single-family homes or condos in the past 10 years to find out their average down payment on a house. 4 of them put less than 10% down on their homes, with the average being 4% down (2 put 3% down; 2 put 5% down). The other friend put 10% down. 

Not one of them put a full 20% down on their homes. “I was relieved we only needed to put 5% down,” one friend told me. “I thought we’d need to wait a few years and save up more money. We ended up buying a house a lot sooner than we thought we could, and we even had a little money left in our savings account so we didn’t feel completely broke after closing.”