Home | Newsletter | Advertise
loading...

The 8-Year Down Payment Wait in the DC Area

  • October 23rd 2018

by UrbanTurf Staff

✉️ Want to forward this article? Click here.

The 8-Year Down Payment Wait in the DC Area: Figure 1
A home in DC for sale for $390,000.

These days, it takes a bit longer to save for a home down payment in the DC region than it did twenty years ago. 

Zillow has found that it takes homebuyers almost 8 years to save for a 20 percent down payment in the DC region. This calculation is based on a median home price of $399,000. In 1998, when the typical home cost $158,100, it took 5.4 years to save for a down payment.

"Despite the booming job markets of the past decade, buyers saving down payments now – mostly first-time buyers, 61 percent of whom are millennials, according to the Zillow Group Consumer Housing Trends Report – need even more time to accomplish what previous generations did," the report states. "First-time buyers say that 46 percent of their down payments come from savings, compared with 35 percent for repeat buyers."

While 8 years may seem like a long time, the period it takes to save for a down payment in the  DC area isn't that much longer than the national average, which comes in at 7.2 years.  

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the-8-year-down-payment-wait-in-the-dc-area/14605.

DC Real Estate Guides

Short guides to navigating the DC-area real estate market

We've collected all our helpful guides for buying, selling and renting in and around Washington, DC in one place. Start browsing below!

First-Timer Primers

Intro guides for first-time home buyers

Red Flags Revealed During a Home Inspection Top 5 Tax Breaks For Homeowners Tax Relief for DC Homeowners
Condo Fee Tutorial What is a Rent Back? 10 Ways To Tell If a Home Renovation is Well Done
Obtaining a Basic Business License For Your Rental What is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage? The Splitting the Rent Formula
How Much Cash Do You Need to Buy a House? Is This Condo Building Financially Healthy? Interest Rates and Mortgage Points
The Scoop on Mortgage Insurance

Unique Spaces

Awesome and unusual real estate from across the DC Metro

The Most Intriguing Loft in DC The R Street Firehouse DC’s One-Room House
Dupont Circle’s Old Frat House To Become Alley Home Best Transition From a Garage To a Home The Roundhouse
Tilden Gardens Restaurant-Turned-Home Hits Market Next Week Logan Circle’s Most Intriguing Garage Frank Lloyd Wright Goes Green in Kensington
Sears Bungalow Gets a Modern Makeover Old Town General Store Becomes Three-Level Home Making the Most of a Skinny House
A Studio 27 Renovation on Capitol Hill Once a Carriage House, Now a Home The Bank that Became a Home
From Pie to Hooch to Heroin to Home The Live-Aboards of Gangplank Marina A Treehouse with Rock Creek Park As A Backyard
Modern Tranquility in Sperryville Saddle Up For Stable Living Throwing a Curve at 550 Square Feet
A Modern Hilltop Retreat Tilden Street Restaurant Becomes Spacious Home Focus on Design: A Vastu Unit at 22 West
The DC Area’s First Net Zero Home A Yankee Goes Green DC’s First Carbon Neutral Home
Eco-Friendly Alley House Off H Street The Gym, The Stables and The Firehouse