House down payments: Highest and lowest averages by city
FILE - A home for sale on Oak Street in Patchogue, New York on May 17, 2022. (Steve Pfost/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
As home prices continue to rise, more and more people are opting to put down a larger amount of money and shell out cash just to lock down their dream house.
The median down payment when buying a home in the United States is $56,640, according to an analysis from Redfin released in March.
That average is up 24.1% from $44,850 a year earlier which is the largest annual increase since April 2022.
Additionally, the typical homebuyer’s down payment was equal to 15% of the purchase price, which is up from 10% a year earlier.
In Las Vegas, Nevada, the median down payment jumped 60.9% year over year, according to Redfin. It was the largest increase among metropolitan areas that were analyzed by the real estate company.
Many cities saw an increase in the last year, while the only cities that saw a decrease in average down payment percentages were Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Here’s a city-by-city comparison of some of the highest and lowest average down payments made on homes in the U.S.
Map: Home down payments by city
Top 10 highest average down payment percentages
- San Francisco, Calif.: 25%
- San Jose, Calif.: 24.9%
- Anaheim, Calif.: 21.9%
- Oakland, Calif.: 20%
- Los Angeles, Calif.: 20%
- New York, N.Y.: 20%
- Seattle, Wash.: 20%
- San Diego, Calif.: 20%
- New Brunswick, N.J.: 20%
- Sacramento, Calif.: 20%
Top 10 lowest average down payment percentages
- Virginia Beach, Va.: 1.8%
- Baltimore, Md.: 5%
- Pittsburgh, Penn.: 5%
- Detroit, Mich.: 5%
- Philadelphia, Penn.: 7.3%
- Riverside, Calif: 8.4%
- Columbus, Ohio: 8.9%
- Washington, D.C.: 10%
- Nashville, Tenn.: 10%
- Phoenix, Ariz.: 10%
What’s more, Redfin found that in February, over one-third of homes were bought using cash.
Atlanta, Georgia, saw the largest increase in homes purchased with cash at 46.1% which is up 12.5% compared to last year. Jacksonville, Florida; Oakland, California; and Portland, Oregon, were also among the metros that saw an increase in cash purchases.
Also in February, one in six homes were bought using an FHA loan.
"FHA loans are more common than they were during the pandemic homebuying boom (they represented 12.1% of mortgaged sales in February 2022) because the market today is less competitive," according to Redfin.
This story was reported from Los Angeles.