Connecticut homebuyers near the top for down payments

Connecticut ranked seventh of 50 states plus Washington, D.C., in recently released data that reflected the state’s relative strength regarding home down payments from national online loan company LendingTree.

The Northeast corridor featured a cluster of states with high down payments.

Those buying homes in Connecticut paid an average $222,511 in the second quarter of 2015 and put down $53,032 as a down payment, 18.62 percent. Those figures placed Connecticut behind New Jersey, California, New York, Hawaii and Massachusetts, plus Washington, D.C., where homebuyers ranked No. 1 in the survey, buying homes averaging $331,667 and putting down $111,427 (21.03 percent) to get the keys.

Nationally, average down payment percentages for conventional 30-year fixed-rate purchase mortgage offers rose slightly in the second quarter to an average of 17.34 percent, Lending Tree said. Its corresponding metric last year was 16.98 percent.

The average down payment nationally for all purchase mortgages, including Federal Housing Administration, VA, nonprime and jumbo mortgages, in the second quarter was $44,366, or 15.15 percent, according to the company.

“The spring and summer homebuying season naturally creates more demand in the housing market,” said Doug Lebda, founder and CEO of LendingTree, in a statement. “With a more competitive housing market, it is common to see down payments rise. However, we also saw volume for FHA loans increase a little over 5 percent quarter over quarter, signaling more first-time homebuyers entering the market.”

The average down payment on a Federal Housing Administration mortgage in the second quarter was 7.86 percent, or $13,350, while the average down payment on a jumbo mortgage was 23.61 percent, or $215,909, LendingTree said.

The five states with the lowest down payments by percent, according to the survey, were Maine (15.02 percent), Indiana (14.9 percent), Iowa (14.82 percent), Mississippi (14.17 percent) and South Dakota, where the average down payment was 14.13 percent on homes averaging $186,379.