Misconceptions About Down Payments

By Chris Doherty

Christian Doherty lists and sells more homes than any other agent in the Greater Lowell, Massachusetts market with over 300 homes sold in the past 12 months. Chris is ranked in the top 1% of all agents in the United States.

Here’s a question that I get asked all the time. “How much money do I need if I want to buy a property?” There are a lot of misconceptions and a lack of awareness of what’s really out there and available to you. I’ll be at a party or I’ll meet somebody that’s renting one of our apartments and they say, “I’d love to be a buyer, but I don’t have the $20,000 down to buy a property.” I tell them that they don’t need $20,000. If you want to buy a property, you can get a much lower down payment option if you have a good, steady job and your credit is in good shape.

How much money do you really need? In today’s market, we are seeing most buyers putting 5% down on average. There are some clients, with a competitive edge, who are putting down 20% or more. That does happen and there are some benefits to that, like eliminating PMI. However, you could buy a property for 5%. That’s pretty typical in today’s market.

We have a lot of clients who are buying a property with 3% down. We’re building their PMI into the mortgage and getting a reduced rate. We also have programs available where you could put down 3% and get $10,000 to help you with the down payment. In some cases, we’re getting people into properties with 1% down.

What I want you to know today is that you don’t need to have 20% to buy a property. In most cases, we’re seeing 5%. Don’t be afraid of entering the real estate market because you don’t think you have enough money.

Give one of our agents a call and we can talk you through all these different programs that we have available to you. We have a lot of great lender partners that have a lot of innovative programs that many people don’t know exist. We can help you navigate that if you decide that you want to buy. I hope to hear from you soon. Have a great day.