We are looking to buy a house or a condo after the wedding and were wondering how much we should expect to have saved. Anybody willing to tell me where you live, what you live in, how much you put down, and what your payments are like every month? (I know this is a rather personal question!)
Danielle&Scott
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
You can put as little as 5% down but you will have a crazy mortgage payment. Danielle and I were looking and we found a house, but we only had 10% to put down. We decided that the mortgage payment would be insane, so we decided to save enough to have 20% down. The house were looking at was under $380k in north Babylon and the taxes were 6820 without star.
Scott
Valentinegirl
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
We put 5% down. Our payments aren't that high. We live in Levittown.
kissy27
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
we will be putting a little more then 20% down
TracyInQueens
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
We put down 12% on a house in Brewster. Our mortgage payments won't be that bad. Right now we are paying tolls to get to work and renting a storage unit, so we'll come out close to what we pay now. Plus, you can't beat the tax breaks you get on a house.
skew
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
i would advise no less then 20% down to avoid PMI
Valentinegirl
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
Posted by skew
i would advise no less then 20% down to avoid PMI
We don't pay PMI w/ 5%down. We have 2 loans. One is a piggy back loan and lets you avoid paying PMI.
skew
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
i have heard of this but never really understood it. either way do whatever you can (20% or piggy back) to avoid PMI.
nov04LIbride
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
We put down 20% on our condo and also bought two points to lower monthly costs. Our monthly charges that include heat and hot water are $290, and our taxes with star are $2800.
TracyInQueens
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
Posted by skew
i have heard of this but never really understood it. either way do whatever you can (20% or piggy back) to avoid PMI.
It is VERY confusing. The way it was explained to me (so that I understood it) was that you get a mortgage for 80%. You put down 10%. You get a second loan for 10%. That equals a 20% down payment.
IrishBride-05
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
We're putting down 20% on our house. I did pay PMI when I bought my co-op, but eliminated it after 18 months through re-financing.
I don't understand how the 80/10/10 works either. I know some people have said that they get a home equity for 10%, but how can you have equity in a house you don't own yet? Also, won't the interest on the 10% loan be round about the same that you would pay on PMI.
TracyInQueens
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
Posted by IrishBride-05
We're putting down 20% on our house. I did pay PMI when I bought my co-op, but eliminated it after 18 months through re-financing.
I don't understand how the 80/10/10 works either. I know some people have said that they get a home equity for 10%, but how can you have equity in a house you don't own yet? Also, won't the interest on the 10% loan be round about the same that you would pay on PMI.
The difference, as it was explained to me, was that PMI is money out the window, you never see it again. Whereas the second mortgage is tax deductible. For us, it was about the same amount of money each month and we felt that we were better off with the additional write off.
MCDO15
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
Posted by IrishBride-05
We're putting down 20% on our house. I did pay PMI when I bought my co-op, but eliminated it after 18 months through re-financing.
I don't understand how the 80/10/10 works either. I know some people have said that they get a home equity for 10%, but how can you have equity in a house you don't own yet? Also, won't the interest on the 10% loan be round about the same that you would pay on PMI.
its two different loans.. 1 loan acts as a down payment. the 2nd loan is the mortage on the house..
we are doing 100% finaiceing... it looks like we put 20% down but its atually a seperate loan. this to aviod PMI (Insurance)... we could of put money down but it makes the payment higher. Now that you have a seperate loan, you work hard to get rid of that 20% balance. (so whatever you were gonna put down, we be applied towards that) It not equity... 2 different things
Valentinegirl
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
Thanks for explaining it better! We did an 80/15/5 loan. That's 5% down, 1 loan for 80% and the other loan for 15%.
cloddy
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
We put only 5% down because we had no cash. that was on a house. it was more difficult for us because sometimes sellers will pass on your offer because they want someone who will give them more cash upfront. We switched from wanting a coop to a house because coop boards require 20-25% down for board approval and we just didn't have it.
LuvMyMichael
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
We are putting 5% down...wish it could be more, but with our wedding 6 months away, it is what it is.
DjPiLL
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
Posted by Valentinegirl
Posted by skew
i would advise no less then 20% down to avoid PMI
We don't pay PMI w/ 5%down. We have 2 loans. One is a piggy back loan and lets you avoid paying PMI.
Yeah but that piggyback loan carries a higher interest... so you are still paying more interest than somebody putting down 20%.
MCDO15
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
Posted by DjPiLL
Posted by Valentinegirl
Posted by skew
i would advise no less then 20% down to avoid PMI
We don't pay PMI w/ 5%down. We have 2 loans. One is a piggy back loan and lets you avoid paying PMI.
Yeah but that piggyback loan carries a higher interest... so you are still paying more interest than somebody putting down 20%.
yes...but you try to pay that off ASAP!! hopefully within in a year or two, you will be in great shape
NPbride
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
Posted by DjPiLL
Posted by Valentinegirl
Posted by skew
i would advise no less then 20% down to avoid PMI
We don't pay PMI w/ 5%down. We have 2 loans. One is a piggy back loan and lets you avoid paying PMI.
Yeah but that piggyback loan carries a higher interest... so you are still paying more interest than somebody putting down 20%.
Actually, that's not always true. We are doing a piggyback loan and it's the same interest rate as our first loan.
computergirl
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Re: Recent home buyers: How much down?
We put down 10% when we bought our house 3 years ago. In reality we had the money to put down 20%, but I was skittish and wanted to have some money available to spend or invest elsewhere.
We did pay PMI for a while, but we've also been paying extra on our mortgage whenever we have extra money saved. So when the amount we had paid on the mortgage surpassed 20%, we wrote to the mortgage company and the PMI ended.
Here's a question I've been wondering about for a while: you *always* seem to hear how you want to avoid PMI at all costs. Like it's this huge financial drain.
In reality, it was $40 a month. With the cost of a typical Long Island house plus typical Long Island taxes, $40 a month is a REALLY tiny piece of the monthly payment. In retrospect, I'm *glad* I didn't take all my savings and put it down back then-- $40 a month, during the two years we paid PMI, is less than $1000 altogether.
Is PMI generally more than that? Or is there something else bad about PMI that I don't know?
