Down Payments of Less Than 10% on Rise

With the refinancing boom over, competition among lenders is heating up to grab a larger share of mortgage lending to home buyers. The evidence suggests that lenders are willing to accept smaller down payments from home buyers, according to TRW REDI Property Data, a real estate information company.

In California, between January and April of this year, lenders advanced more than 95,000 conventional mortgages to home buyers, of which 15% required a down payment of less than 10% of the value of the property. Three years ago, only 5% of conventional mortgages were made with down payments of less than 10%.