Saving for the down payment is understandably regarded as one of the most difficult aspects of buying a home. Although the exact number depends on the purchase price, buyers generally need to come up with tens of thousands of dollars up front in order to take out their mortgage. Of course, any statistic will display a wide range of averages across the nation's fifty states, and both down payment amounts and percentages follow this rule. With that in mind, LendingTree sought to determine which state's buyers were offering up the largest and smallest down payments on their mortgages in Q3. They found that New York came in near the top of the list in both down payment amount and percentage.
Overall, LendingTree found that the dollar amount of the average down payment for conventional 30-year, fixed-rate purchase mortgages dropped nearly 10% from Q2 to Q3, falling from $52,480 to $47,265. However, the down payment as a percentage of the purchase price stayed essentially unchanged, rising 0.03 percentage points from 18.02% to 18.05%.
Which state's buyers are paying the most up front? It will come as no surprise to learn that California topped the list, both in terms of percentage (21.44%) and dollar amount ($97,809) of the average down payment. Here are the top five states in terms of percentage, along with the dollar amount of their average down payment:
- California: 21.44% ($97,809)
- Hawaii: 21.32% ($69,923)
- Delaware: 21.29% ($51,678)
- Colorado: 20.44% ($78,605)
- New York: 19.85% ($90,318)
And here are the five states whose buyers put the smallest percentage down on average:
- Alaska: 15.41% ($36,476)
- West Virginia: 15.44% ($21,415)
- Mississippi: 15.78% ($22,964)
- Iowa: 15.80% ($37,367)
- Arkansas: 15.90% ($21,707)
You can learn more and see the complete ranking by going to LendingTree.com.
