Homebuyer down payments more affordable
By Nick Ramsey, Columbus Business First
It’s getting easier to afford to buy a home.
Down payments on home purchases across the nation are getting smaller again after years of increases following the burst of the housing bubble, according to a new report from RealtyTrac.
According to the real estate analytics site, the average down payment in the first quarter represented 14.8 percent of the purchase price, compared with 15.5 percent early in 2014.
“The dangers of interest-only, negative-amortization, and low, low credit score loans are not a part of today’s low down payment programs,” Craig King, COO at Chase International brokerage, covering the Lake Tahoe and Reno housing markets, said in the RealtyTrac release. “Without those types of high-risk components, low down payment loans are a sound strategy.”
