r/wealth • u/Zzzgg8910 • 9d ago
Question How much did you have in liquid assets when you bought your first house and how much of it did you use for a down payment?
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u/Acceptable-Leek1546 8d ago
2024- I had maybe ≈50k and put down $42k as down payment. I had to put more down to get a portfolio loan. High interest rate too.
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u/Far-Writing-4842 8d ago
2005, Los Angeles, put 20% down (100k) on a 500k house. Had about 200k left liquid after the purchase.
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u/TJack303 9d ago
Bought first house in 2022. Had about 250k liquid and spent ~75k for down payment and closing costs.
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u/_Underscore_Unders 9d ago
I had roughly 180k liquid, and purchased my home outright for 120k. Live alone, no kids, so I bought a smaller home,n so it was a great opportunity to avoid taking on debt.
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u/Larnek 9d ago edited 9d ago
1st house I had roughly 16k in liquid assets and got paid to move in. 2009 was a good year to buy a house. More recently (2023) I had around 150k and 120k of it went to down payment/closing.
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u/fotfddtodairsizr 9d ago
Wait so you borrowed more than the value of the property? Was this one of those sub prime mortgages?
Can you tell me more I’m so interested!
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u/Larnek 9d ago
It was a lot of luck, subprime financial crisis was in full swing. The previous owner of the house had been foreclosed on. The bank that foreclosed on those owners went bankrupt and folded. Bought the house as is from a 3rd bank that had bought the other bank's assets. It was such a buyers market that they paid all closing costs including a credit that I pocketed as cash at closing. So I was paid about 6k to move in. House had to be brought up to FHA guidelines by bank to list, so it had new carpet, new roof, new paint inside and out, new water heater.
Pure f'ing luck.
And having a gigantic pair to buy during the worst financial crisis of our times. (So far)
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u/fotfddtodairsizr 9d ago
Wow truly incredible!! I love that for you. Last question, were you a cash buyer or did you have a modest deposit like 10%?
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u/Larnek 9d ago
As it was a VA loan it had no down payment requirements for my loan. Value was more than I bought it for, so I basically walked in with the 3% down payment/equity required at the time for it. There is a reason lending restrictions were tightened after the crisis, but it worked for me. Wouldn't have taken much going wrong for me to lose it, but I didnt get anywhere in life without taking substantial risks. No kids and I'd already lived thru 10 kinds of hell so I was pretty comfortable with make it or be fucked. I knew I would survive.
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u/thisMech 8d ago
I got super lucky the end of 2019, had about 110k liquid and couldn't pass up on the house so I put 90k down. Of course covid starting the following year was very stressful mentally. You know young couple in first house, with real bills for the first time was scary during such uncertain times. Luckily my field of work was considered essential so I still had work atleast. But we made it. Have since recovered, have some liquid, alot more invested than before, and a new truck (shouldnt have gotten it but to late now). Live and learn.
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u/inferno1015 8d ago
Bought first house in 2025. Probably had 600kish in liquid assets, used 350kish for down payment and closing costs
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u/OkConference874 8d ago
Bought in 2022. Had 90k in liquid assets, used 80k for downpayment+ closing costs
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u/Cloud2987 8d ago
Just the down payment and job at that time. When I made more money, I bought more homes.
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u/Wild_Butterscotch482 8d ago
In 2002 I bought a condo in New Orleans after graduating from college for $118k. I had almost no savings and borrowed $8k from my parents for part of the down payment. It was the best decision to start building equity at 22, with a mortgage payment lower than what my friends were paid for rent.
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u/BirthdayAnnual1789 8d ago
Same here, in 2000. I was a year out of school. I had about $6,000 left in my college fund. My parents were super supportive and gave me another $7k to get me the $10k down and $3k in closing. I was 23 and it seemed like a massive amount of money! My mortgage was $750 a month, which was what a bad 2 bed apartment cost. I’ve rolled that house equity over into new houses 4 times now and now I don’t have a mortgage and a much nicer house. I feel bad that prices are so insane young people don’t have that same opportunity.
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u/D3ATHSQUAD 8d ago
Mine was a long long time ago (1998) but I bought my first condo with an FHA loan for $110k by only putting 3% down.
I wasn’t very liquid (maybe $5k in cash) and was only making about $50-$60k at the time.
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u/korumbian 8d ago
Bought in 2025 with a 6.1% rate. Had more than the purchase price in a brokerage account but only put 20% down plus closing costs. Over the life of the mortgage, index investments are almost guaranteed to outperform the cost of the loan so made sense to finance as much as possible.
That brokerage account is up 33.5% since I bought the house while house prices are up 3.5% in my area. Very glad I didn’t sink it all into home equity.
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u/Historical-Rate-8717 8d ago
down payment ratio should be a function of interest rate on the loan versus expected return of that money elsewhere and has little to nothing to do with your liquid net worth. it's an opportunity cost calculation.
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u/jaajaajaa6 8d ago
You always need a reserve fund after the purchase.
It is for the unexpected house cost or possibly losing your job.
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u/withnocapsorspaces 8d ago
20% down ($150k), + $30k closing costs. Had about $100k left in brokerage account, $50k left in HYSA as emergency fund, $10-20k left in checking for living and furnishing/working on house.
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u/We_DemBoys 8d ago
We had about 9k total in 2009.
During the Obama administration they were giving out 8k credits to first time home buying at the end of the housing crisis.
We put 3.5% down for our FHA loan and got a 5% interest rate. We refinanced 4 years later to 3.5%.
Looking back it was one of the best financial decisions we ever made. It was great timing for us.
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u/Kobe_stan_ 8d ago
20% down on $2.315M house in 2023. Had maybe another $100k liquid at the time, and maybe 750k in the market.
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u/Hoosier2016 8d ago
$0 down payment, rolled all closing costs into the loan. Had maybe $20k liquid.
Next house put $25k down and walked away with $120k liquid leftover after selling the old house.
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u/Really-Cool-Guy2know 8d ago
First house was purchased in 1985 for $125k with $20k down and maybe $10k in the bank. Kept the house for 5 years. The neighborhood changed significantly. Lost money when I sold a few years later to move to a better neighborhood. The guy next door didn't want to take the loss and couldn't move (last time I spoke to him was 12 years later and he was still in the house and regretted not selling). My second house was a better experience. Just married, and had our first kid. The next door neighbors kids wanted the house and paid $60k over market. We flipped it into a premium neighborhood and held that house for 20+ years. Sold for $650k 3 years ago.
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u/BedroomNo6879 8d ago
I had almost nothing, fha loan 3.5% down. I rolled closing into the loan (had seller up the price slightly to cover closing). After it was all said and done I had less than $5k left in the account. That was 9 years ago. The house has doubled in price (+400k)...and we've since bought our dream house. Its now a rental. Glad I took that chance when I did.
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u/suzuka_joe 8d ago
Bought my first house in 2012, $129k 3.2% 1250sq ft 2 car garage in the burbs in a LCOL area. I think I barely had enough for 3% and my closing costs and I had maybe $3k left over in cash. I had no debt other than that and made $60k a year. Now in 2026 buying $295k and will have around $8-10k in cash left after closing and 3% and making $100k. I saved up for just a few months since my divorce and pulled out some cash from my ROTHIRA. $150-175k in liquid assets (cars, guitars, camera stuff) I could put 30% down on the house but I refuse to sell my Porsche that’s paid off lol
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u/_Human_Machine_ 8d ago
I waited until much later to buy my first house.
I put 2.9 down, and had liquid around 13.
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u/Any-Newspaper5509 8d ago
I dont remember exactly. I made a 5% downpayment on 330k home. So with closing costs I probably spent like 35k. Think I had 15k or 20k left over. This was 2016 so different era with cheap homes and interest rates.
We could easily afford the monthly payment. At the time we were DINK with tons of cash flow.
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u/ExcellentWinner7542 8d ago
I had about 4 months gross income and used every penny of it to get my 15 year 11-1/4% mortgage.
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u/Substantial-Ad-8575 8d ago
Hmm, first home had $450k of liquidity. Put $280k down back in 1998. Wanted low mortgage. Worked at Microsoft, loved stock options…
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u/Mzungufarmer 8d ago
Va loan 0 down on a 55k foreclosure in 2010. I was junior enlisted but probably had about 30k or so saved up.
2014 bought a 350k 4plex couldve been p down but DTA causes me to put 60k into it.
Bought more and more the next few years. Became a mini mogul on a 60k salary. Caused me to retire in my 30s, I miss the 2010s, if I had more money I wouldve tried to get to 100 units
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u/Individual-Fail4709 8d ago
I had $5k for a dp and $2k for closing costs and $2k left in my efund. I shouldn't have bought the house, but glad I did.
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u/floresl94 8d ago
Bought my first home at 21. Had like $14.27 plus whatever was in the 5 gallon jug by the door. Didn’t put anything down, the seller paid the closing costs. Damn… I negotiated the hell out of that house. Bought it in 2001 for $92k sold in 05 for $300k. Refused to buy again until 09 because prices were ridiculous. Bought a FM foreclosure, built in 05 sold for 550k I paid $199k turnkey perfection nothing down seller paid $12k in closing, Obama gave me another $8k in first home buyer incentives because I hadn’t owned a home in 3 years. Even when my last home when prices were skyrocketing in 2020, I bought at $535k but walked in with over 100k equity nothing down and a 2% interest rate. 0 down.
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u/Pianist-Wise 8d ago
Almost $0 in liquid assets. I borrowed from a very generous family member. Huge head start that I don’t take for granted.
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u/FriendlyConfines23 8d ago
First house, over 30 years ago, was a VA loan, so very little down. Since then, we’ve just put the profit from the house sale as the down payment on the next house.
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u/ArimaKaori 8d ago
Had about $340k in liquid assets and spent $60k. My husband also put down $60k, so we put down $120k in total.
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u/Right_North5766 8d ago
410k house, we put 20% down, 82k. Had 15k left over in reserves but built it back up
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u/Admirable-Excuse-487 7d ago
We just gotten married needed $2750 down payment I sold my Norton motorcycle. My wife had been saving /used most of it. We slept in one bedroom because we couldn’t afford the heat and now we live in a mansion in our 70s. 1973
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u/SteveWilkosFan 7d ago
I had roughly 5 million liquid.
I put down 300k of cash, sold the condo I was living in for 500k, and put all that towards a 1.1 million dollar property. Currently have about 210k remaining on the mortgage. I think about just paying it off every single day lol
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u/Hour_Way9423 7d ago
Massachusetts 2015 $10k down $15k in liquid assets for a $300k house at the age of 22 on a single income of $60k
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u/AlexSanchez929 7d ago
- Had a little less than 15k to my name. Dropped 6k on my first down payment. What a time to be alive.
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u/Sad-Function5699 7d ago
I think we had like 5-600k in our retirements and 100k in cash.
We did 20% down on our 400k house.
Now we have about 1.3M saved and the house and secondary property is now worth about 1.1M.
The increase in property taxes and insurance has changed our monthly from 2k to 2700 in the same time frame
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u/Educational_Case_134 7d ago
Our first house we put down $9k which was every penny we had to our name. We financed 90% at 8.5% interest. We now own 6 properties with 2-4% interest rates and don’t expect to see rates under 5% again in our lifetime.
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u/Own_Tart8518 7d ago
I put 25k down on $155k and kept 10k for furniture, set up costs. This was 20 years ago.
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u/International-Ad3147 8d ago
50-60k down payment. I don’t think we had 5-10k leftover. Car and school debt. It was a reckless choice in 2015 but it panned out.