Fewer buyers are making down payments on their purchase of a new home, and even fewer are forking over the 20-percent sum that was once the norm, according to a new study by the California Association of REALTORS®.

Nationwide, nearly 30 percent of buyers and 45 percent of first-time buyers nationwide no longer make down payments, the study said.

In California, the trend is less pronounced. While 41 percent of home buyers there put nothing down, a solid 20 percent finance every dollar of their home purchase, up from 4.5 percent in 2000.

Buyers blame rising home prices, which make raising even a 10 percent down payment a challenge for many people.

“How many people are going to scrape together $40,000 in a reasonable amount of time? asks Doug Self, a recent home buyer from Sacramento, Calif. “That’s three years of socking away a grand a month and not having anything go wrong. That’s just not realistic.”

Source: The Associated Press (02/22/2007)
Reprinted from [insert REALTOR® Magazine or REALTOR® Magazine Online] February 23, 2007 with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.

First Time Buyers, Buying, Selling

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