Jonathan J Miller, Columnist

Want a House? Good Luck With the Down Payment

Lenders have eased, but buyers still need a bundle for a mortgage.

June 15, 2015 at 4:33 PM UTC

Jonathan Miller writes about the housing economy and other aspects of real estate. He began a real estate blog, the Matrix, in 2005, and has written a column for Curbed.com. He is co-founder of Miller Samuel, a residential real estate appraisal company, and the commercial valuation firm Miller Cicero.

The hurdle remains high.
Photographer: Tim Boyle/Getty Images

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Saving for a down payment has long been a big challenge for anyone who wants to buy a home. And it got harder after the financial crisis, as lenders insisted on down payments of 20 percent or more for conventional mortgages, which make up the bulk of the market.

That seems to be changing a bit -- perhaps because so many consumers have paid down other debt and have raised their credit scores. Since 2010, the average down payment has declined to 18.4 percent from 21.4 percent, according to data from Realtytrac. (Just by way of comparison, it was about 2 percent at the peak of the housing bubble.)