Home lenders are taking bigger risks on the mortgages they are funding, with the average down payment declining on a quarterly basis.
As of the first quarter of this year, home buyers made an average down payment of 16.64 percent on their residential property purchases.
The average is based on transactions where a 30-year fixed-rate conventional mortgage was utilized to finance the purchase of the house.
LendingTree reported the data based on mortgage offers made through its network.
Down payments declined compared to the fourth-quarter 2015, when the average was 17.46 percent.
They were also lower than the 16.98 percent average in the first-quarter 2015.
Conventional down payments averaged 13.01 percent in Mississippi, the smallest of any state.
North Dakota’s average was 13.5 percent, followed by Alabama’s 14.13 percent, Kentucky’s 14.25 percent and Missouri’s 14.31 percent.
At the other end of the spectrum was New York, where the average was 19.74 percent.
On U.S. loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, down payments averaged 8.74 percent in the first-quarter 2016, while the average was 23.89 percent on jumbo mortgages
Including government mortgage programs, jumbo mortgages, nonprime loans and conventional mortgages — down payments averaged 12.18 percent in the first-quarter 2016.
