https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Fri, 08 May 2026 08:54:47 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment/page/2#post-934050 Mon, 15 Jul 2013 20:35:34 +0000 Sugar.Biscuit 934050@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Mrs. Jacks: We are applying for a heloc &amp; use part of that for our down payment on our next home. We will hopefully have it paid off quickly as we plan to rent out our current home to create additional income causing us to pay off our debts 10x's faster. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-934045 Mon, 15 Jul 2013 20:33:48 +0000 Mrs. Lemon-Lime 934045@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Nvmnd. Old thread. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-934036 Mon, 15 Jul 2013 20:32:20 +0000 Mrs. Jacks 934036@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@bluestriped bee: yeah, the tricky part was because we had two houses at the time, we wanted to make sure six months of expenses included mortgages on both houses. Once we sold Seattle, that immediately bumped up our months just by virtue of not needing extra cushion.</p> <p>I think a healthy but fiscally sound stretch to buy a house is just fine :) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-934006 Mon, 15 Jul 2013 20:26:40 +0000 BSB 934006@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Mrs. Jacks: Thanks for the update! I was wondering what you decided. Very cool. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-934000 Mon, 15 Jul 2013 20:24:45 +0000 Mrs. Jacks 934000@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@bluestriped bee: as a follow up, we did shrink our cushion from 12 months of expenses to 6 months, but we had it back up to 12 months by February. In hindsight, I would have made the same choice again! It was well worth it and the stretch was very temporary. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-933998 Mon, 15 Jul 2013 20:24:16 +0000 skibobrown 933998@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I think we'll probably have about 50% of our down payment left as savings after putting down 20% on the house. We'll probably burn through some of that with work on the house right away. We also have some stocks that I'm not counting as part of our house savings. If we do it right, we won't have to go near those. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-933974 Mon, 15 Jul 2013 20:18:37 +0000 BSB 933974@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Interesting old thread. I want to hear from others. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238953 Sat, 28 Jul 2012 00:44:28 +0000 sunny 238953@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@MrsJacks, there's a small (?) risk of a 401k loan to put towards your house, and that is if you leave your job (e.g. fired or quit), you immediately have to pay back the entirety of the loan otherwise it will be considered an early withdrawal and you'll be penalized. </p> <p>Also, I would not count on being able to refinance down the road. Interest rates are at historic lows... there really isn't anywhere else to go but up. With my refi, my lender required at least 20% equity in the home for the best rates, so if your home loses any value between purchase &amp; refi, you'll have to borrow less than your mortgage (e.g. come up with cash to pay the difference) or not be able to refi at all and be stuck paying PMI, etc.</p> <p>We had absolutely no savings after we put down 20% on our home. We didn't even have money to buy new furniture right away. While it was pretty scary to see our savings go from a substantial sum to nothing, we really wanted to stick to a conforming loan with no PMI so it was worth it to us. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238945 Sat, 28 Jul 2012 00:30:04 +0000 Mrs. Jacks 238945@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Wigglesj: I know we could do that, but it seems like all the financial advice I've read said that it's better not to borrow at all if you don't have to. I just don't like the idea of having such a small cushion after a down payment. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238546 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:13:33 +0000 Wigglesj 238546@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Mrs. Jacks: My husband was able to borrow up to 50% of the amount in his 401K account. We were charged a small fee and paid interest but the interest just goes back into the account so essentially we were just paying ourselves the interest. It was a fantastic option for us because we knew it was the better decision to buy rather than rent but we felt very strongly about having a down payment. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238275 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:19:21 +0000 Modern Daisy 238275@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My parents gave us about 95% of our down payment, but since we wanted the monthlies to be lower we contributed some of our own savings. After the DP, closing costs, moving expenses, etc. our savings took a big hit but we still had about 2.5 months living expenses left in cash. Of course, right after that happened we were slapped with a huge surprise tax bill and lost half of what was left but that's another story! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238154 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:13:13 +0000 ninja 238154@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We put down 20%, and still had 15K in savings left, which is about what we were comfortable with. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238138 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:04:57 +0000 Mrs. Jacks 238138@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Wigglesj: Tell me more about that. </p> <p>We are looking at a ginormous down payment, and I'm used to having a year's worth of living expenses, so the idea of depleting our reserves is a bit nerve-wracking. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238047 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:24:30 +0000 Mrs. Lantern 238047@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Our downpayment was $120K so not much left after that! Over time we were able to rebuild our savings without sacrificing too much. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238021 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:16:13 +0000 MrsBrewer 238021@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Our down payment was only 5%, after that we still had the equivalent to our down payment in our bank </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238018 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:15:16 +0000 Running Elley 238018@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We made sure that we had 3 months of living expenses (including mortgage payment) left in our savings after the down payment. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238015 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:13:27 +0000 yoursilverlining 238015@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We had 6 months of savings in our savings account after putting 20% down. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238013 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:12:37 +0000 Wigglesj 238013@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We were lucky and able to take out a 401K loan for our down payment. We paid that off last year with our tax refund. Whew! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-238009 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:11:23 +0000 Alivoo01 238009@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I had about 10% of my savings left after the down payment. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237977 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 10:59:11 +0000 ladyfingers 237977@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We got an FHA loan so we only put down 3.5% and then our closing costs were mostly paid by the seller. We ended up with $5,000 left in savings which was a comfortable, although not ideal, cushion for us. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237611 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 08:58:28 +0000 DillonLion 237611@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We got a loan from the department of agriculture since our neighborhood was still zoned as a rural area at the time. We were able to buy the home with no down payment (and no PMI), so we didn't have to touch our savings.</p> <p>ETA: Seller covered all closing costs, and we did a leaseback for a month while their new house was being built. So they paid us rent for that month. We made money on our house purchase. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237544 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 08:29:10 +0000 plaidpants 237544@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We had about 20% of our savings left, after putting 10% down. We stretched to buy our house and it needs a lot of cosmetic work (every single room has wallpaper) so we feel pretty broke, knowing most of the money we have left will still be going into the house via Home Depot. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237538 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 08:25:00 +0000 Mrs. Pickle 237538@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We had enough left in our savings to make me feel comfortable. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237500 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 08:06:20 +0000 Bookish 237500@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We got an FHA mortgage which means we put down 3.5%. Luckily our closing costs were completely covered by the seller, so I believe we had a bit over one mortgage payment left in our main savings account (we have retirement accounts &amp; a Health Savings Account as well). We are currently working on having 3 months of mortgage payments in one of our savings accounts, and working on a year's worth of daycare in the other one :) Oh, and it's only been 6 months since we bought our house, so we don't have quite as much saved as I'd like so far. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237373 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 06:04:30 +0000 Andrea 237373@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We always make sure to have at least 1 yr of living expenses (mortgage, food money, etc) in cash. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237330 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 02:41:11 +0000 looch 237330@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We haven't bought our home yet, but the plan is to have 9 months of living expenses plus $10k for furniture and new appliances. We don't have a ton that we have to buy, most of my stuff is in storage. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237274 Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:14:20 +0000 HLK208 237274@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We only had about 2 months worth of mortgages in our savings after our down payment. We bounced back before making the first mortgage payment because of that 45 day window (I think it's 45 days?) before it's due. However, our house is a money pit and it's a good thing we had a tiny bit in savings because it was quickly gone after fixing serious house repairs!! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237261 Thu, 26 Jul 2012 23:58:05 +0000 Mrs. Cat in the Cradle 237261@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We used most of ours for a 20% down payment. Would have liked to have some left, but putting 20 down eliminated the PMI which saves nearly a 100 a month. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237225 Thu, 26 Jul 2012 22:57:10 +0000 immabeetoo 237225@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We will make sure to have at least $10k in an accessible account after we withdraw our down payment - never know what could happen! I'm hoping we find a house that will leave us with more than that, if shopping goes well! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/down-payment#post-237224 Thu, 26 Jul 2012 22:57:00 +0000 skibobrown 237224@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We're probably going to purchase a fixer-upper. So after we pay the down payment, we want to have enough left over to actually do the fixing up! </p>