Here's How I Was Able to Make a 50% Down Payment on My House

A 20% down payment on a home will get you out of paying private mortgage insurance, or PMI, on a conventional loan. PMI is a costly premium that's designed to protect your mortgage lender in the event you fall behind on your home loan payments.

But many home buyers struggle to come up with 20% down on a home. According to 2022 data from the National Association of Realtors, the average home down payment during the prior three-year period was between 6% and 7%.

My husband and I, on the other hand, made a 50% down payment on the home we live in now. Here's why we did that -- and how we were able to pull it off.

Why we put down extra money on our home

My husband and I moved from a small starter home to the house we live in today. We knew that upsizing was going to result in higher monthly mortgage payments. But we also enjoyed having lower ones in our starter home.

Lower payments gave us a lot of financial flexibility. We were able to spend money on things we enjoyed, like leisure and travel, that we didn't want to give up. So we figured that if we could keep our mortgage payments as low as possible in our new house, we'd be able to uphold those habits.

That's what motivated us to put so much money down on our house. Because we bought new construction, our lender required us to make a 20% down payment on our home. But we clearly went well beyond that.

How we made a 50% down payment

One thing that helped us make a 50% down payment on our home was that we were selling a house we had a lot of equity in. So even after paying off the mortgage on our first home, we had a nice pile of cash to use for the purchase of our next one.

We also decided to dip into our savings account to come up with some of our down payment. We were initially hesitant to do so, because we didn't want to leave ourselves with inadequate funds for expenses like home improvements and emergencies. But one thing that made us more comfortable taking funds out of our savings is that we were buying a brand-new house. We were virtually protected from major repairs for a couple of years due to the different warranties that came with our home, and we weren't expecting to do any near-term improvements.

Also, while we did take money out of savings, we didn't touch the portion earmarked as our emergency fund. That would've been a mistake.

All told, making a large home down payment made sense for us, and it was feasible for us to do so. But most people don't put down 50% on a home. And if you can't, that's really okay.

If you make a 20% down payment, you'll at least avoid getting stuck with PMI. So if that's a more attainable goal, there's nothing wrong with that.