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@kjpugs: on my first house, I didn't put anything down. I paid for my closing costs, though. How did I save closing cost money? Well, I lived with my parents before I moved South and paid the "rent" that they gave back to me to buy the house. Not helpful in your situation, I know.

To save money now, we just pinch where we can and put every little bit extra we have away.

I know very few people irl who put 20% or more down on their first home. Honestly, I probably know 0 people irl who did that.

@kjpugs: $1400 for rent is not bad at all.

With a mortgage you have so much else to factor in like PMI (if you owe more than 80%), insurance, taxes, etc. I think our $900 "mortgage" comes out to about $1300 per month. Add in some random $100 project per month we have to handle (lawn, pest, termite bond, etc) and you've met rent. But in home ownership you also have upgrades, major fixes (ac roof etc) and risk that you can move immediately if needed or will have to sell for a loss.

Those are close to our numbers and it adds up quickly. Basically all of the above is why we want to probably rent if we move south.

@kjpugs: We put a $50K downpayment on our current/first home which was a combination of savings and gifts. It wasn't 20%, but we avoided PMI because we went with a lender's promotion that covered PMI at 15% and covered closing costs.

{PMI is private mortgage insurance and is usually required by the lender as security in case you default on your loan. You pay it while you're under 20% equity, once you reach that point you can request that it be removed.}

For what we pay in rent, we could afford a pretty substantial mortgage. But nyc requires 25 percent down which would be well into six figures. It will take us quite awhile to save that much.

We put down 20% ($66,000), but $61,000 of that was loaned to us by my parents, who I am paying back with a miniscule interest rate.

We put 20% down. We lived ridiculously frugally for years before we were able to save up enough. For instance, I used a pay as you go cell phone for $100/year for years and years!

I agree that home ownership is expensive. Every year we have at least $1000+ in expenses for this or that. The first year was getting the home ready to live in and buying lawn tools, the next year was maintaining the deck and trees, after that was a new furnace ($5000, ouch!). Sometimes I wish we didn't buy and that we were still renting!

When you put <20% down, you must pay private mortgage insurance which I believe is not deductible. Above your principal and interest payment per month, you will also have property tax, hazard insurance and PMI.

@kjpugs: sorry. I wasn't trying to talk down to you or anything. It honestly sounded like you were looking for clarification on the home buying process.

We put down around 10%. Part of the down payment came from my parents. When we got engaged they said they would give us x amount of money. We had an intimate destination wedding so we were able to put a majority of the money towards a down payment (probably one of the best decisions we've made). Then while I was in law school I got a job over the summer and we saved my entire income from that summer (because we were used to living on one income anyways).

@MamaMoose: you said just what I was thinking but couldn't word it so well.

We are putting 20% down in a very expensive area, but we have both been out of school and had jobs for over ten years and are very lucky to not have student loans. While we live in an area with very expensive housing, the premium to rent really isn't that bad, so we never were interested in buying something that we could afford until now. Home ownership just wasn't a big ideal for us- but I know it's different in different parts of the country.

Since you asked $$$, DH and I put down 100k and we were "gifted" the remaining amount to get to 20%. We had been saving for a long time.

We will be putting down 20-25% depending on final purchase price. We put down around 13% on our current co-op and got rid of the PMI this year, which was nice. We will be using a combo of money from the sale, money we've saved specifically for the down payment and a generous gift from my parents.

For several years post college I lived rent free at my mom's house. I didn't have many bills either. I was able to save the equivalent of 20% down plus some. We put 10% down and the rest went to furniture and upgrades. Majority of closing costs were covered by my husband's relocation package. He had about 12-15% of our home purchase price in savings too, but that was spent covering the mortgage and seller expenses for his other house before it was sold about 9-10 months after we purchased our house. He accumulated his savings through company bonuses.
ETA: dollar specifics $35 k, 5k over loan amount, 2k our closing. So at sign time we forked over $42k.

We did an FHA loan and put down 3.5%. We probably saved for about 3 years to cover that much plus all the closing costs (we opted to put down a lower percentage in order to not drain our savings).

This was definitely the right choice for us. 3 years after that, we refinanced to a 15 year loan with a LOT lower percentage, so we're going to be saving thousands over the life of our loan! And we knew going in that we would eventually refinance when we could!

I bought a townhouse in Texas before I met DH. FHA loan, only 3% (maybe $6000) down plus closing costs. And I got the $8000 obama tax credit for first time home buyers. It's a rental house now and the rent covers my mortgage.

Our current condo was bought by DH on his own after we got married. We moved to a much more expensive market (NYC area) and he put down 25%, which was a little over $160,000.

I said this in the other thread, but he saved it by living very frugally. He couldn't find a job in his field for a year after graduating college. He worked two jobs--one at 7-11 and one as a janitor. His first "real" job was very low paying for a few years. Then he moved up. As he went up to job chain, he kept living like the guy working at 7-11.

When we met, he was driving an old minivan that his parents didn't want any more. He paid for his graduate degree as he went. And he just saved his money basically, from the age of 23-30. I think before he met me, his philosophy was "Why buy _____ when you can live without it?"

I definitely have more of an urge to consume, but he's been right about a lot of things in regards to having a baby--in the end we didn't but a jumperoo or an exersaucer, or a swing, or a bouncer. We've bought exactly 1 stuffed animal and a few teethers. And our stroller (on sale, not one of the expensive brands). We were given some hand me down toys and we've found that we don't really need anything else.

We buy clothes (never expensive clothes) and diapers/wipes. I think a lot of other people in our income bracket (I'm just saying this based on my real life mom friends) spend quite a bit on baby gear, designer baby clothes, baby photos, baby shoes, birthday parties, big toy gifts, baby classes of all kinds, etc. They are already planning big first birthday parties and get professional photos at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months--new outfits for all of those, several outfits for each holiday that aren't worn when the holiday is over, etc.

We own one car and it's 12 years old. I would LOVE to buy tons of cute stuff for my LO, but I also appreciate my husband's ability to not play "keeping up with the Joneses". I think he's a good influence on me. hah.

However, I do know there are hardworking people all over the US who have no belt to tighten, as someone posted recently. I understand that if a family is living on $1000 a month, that there is no way to save.

@kjpugs: To answer your questions:

We saved my entire salary for three years to cover the downpayment (20% was well into the 6 figures for us). As a result, we didn't buy a house until I was 37 years old! I did feel like an exception to the rule as a lot of people on these boards seem to buy younger, but it just wasn't possible before that.

@78h2o: First of all, I hope your DH is doing well. This actually happened to us. A couple years ago, an illness/injury made him unable to work & we're very thankful we purchased a house based on only one income. It's something we never ever thought would happen, but it did.

We put down just about 10%, on a FHA loan. That was mostly with DH's money he had saved. Closing costs came to about 2% of the purchase price. We are paying about $260/month for PMI I think? Which sucks but this house was a rare find in our little town and we had to jump on it quickly!

We have two properties. The first is DH's condo. He put 20% down to purchase which was about $30,000. He was very lucky and lived with his parents who charged him minimal rent in order to save up for the condo over the course of 5 years.

Once we were married, we continued to live in the condo and used DH's paycheck to cover our expenses. We saved all of my paycheck which got us the down payment on our current house. We have an FHA loan on this house, so we put 5% down. We also paid about $60,000 less than what it appraised for since it was owned by a relocation company who wanted to dump it quickly.

We bought in December and put down 25%, mainly to avoid a million dollar mortgage. We are in a very nice area in SoCal. However, we plan to live in this home for at least 25 years, or after the kids (2 yo and soon to be born) are settled and we are ready to retire (we are in our mid thirties).

While the mortgage payment is higher than any rent we paid (even for our former 2 bedroom rental in Manhattan), we definitely need the tax break. The AMT was killing us. We could have bought 3 new cars with the amount we paid due to AMT for the past 4 years.