Estimating Your Down Payment in NYC

One of the most essential components to purchasing a residential property is the down payment. The size of a down payment is important for both its real value, which determines the amount of equity a buyer will have in a home and how much the home’s sale price is covered by the down payment, which often determines a buyer’s purchasing power.

For example, a hopeful buyer has saved up $200,000. The savings can be applied to a $200,000 home in which the buyer would own it outright, or it can be used as a 20 percent down payment on a home up to $1 million with a mortgage. However this buyer chooses to use the $200,000, the size of the down payment determines a lot about the buyer’s equity position.

So, how much do New Yorkers typically put down as a down payment? We analyzed public mortgage data from the New York City Department of Finance to find out. In doing so, we discovered wide variations between boroughs and even between neighborhoods in what home buyers typically spend on a down payment.

Typical Down Payment in NYC Is One-Quarter of Home’s Value

Our analysis of the typical down payment is separated between condos and townhouses. In New York City, condominiums are considered real property and mortgage information is included in publicly available recorded sale documents. Co-op units are not considered real property, so we excluded them from this analysis due to a lack of mortgage data.

According to our analysis, the typical down payment as a share of a condo’s total sale price was 27.1 percent in 2015, meaning New Yorkers typically pay for a quarter of their home’s value up front. Considering that the standard or most popular option across the country is 20 percent, our findings suggest that New Yorkers save up a considerable amount for a slightly larger down payment on a condo unit. In Manhattan, the typical down payment was equal to 30.6 percent of a condo’s value, which may seem counterintuitive. After all, home values are considerably higher in Manhattan than anywhere else in the city. The prevalence of global buyers and investors in the Manhattan market mean sales transactions are often made in cash or with very little leverage, which pulls the median down payment size higher than the citywide median (in the case of an all-cash buyer, the down payment is 100 percent).

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the typical down payment was the smallest in the Bronx. Condo buyers typically placed 20 percent of their home’s value as a down payment, 7.1 points lower than the rest of the city. Since home values are also much lower in the Bronx compared to the rest of the city, the typical down payment there translates to roughly $25,200 based on the borough’s median recorded sales price in 2015. This is far more approachable for many first-time buyers who may have a limited budget. In Manhattan, by comparison, the typical down payment equates to $447,398 – nearly 18 times the size of the Bronx. See the chart below for a breakdown of median down payment sizes by borough:

Buyers Pay the Greatest Down Payment in East Queens, the Least in the Bronx

Mapping the typical down payment value in 2015 by neighborhood, we see a variety of down payment sizes within boroughs just as much as we see between them.Use the map below to explore down payment trends in all of New York City’s neighborhoods: Unchanged: Mapping the typical down payment value in 2015 by neighborhood, we see a variety of down payment sizes within boroughs just as much as we see between them. Use the map below to explore down payment trends in all of New York City’s neighborhoods:

Buyers in neighborhoods in eastern Queens typically pay the greatest down payment as measured in share of total condo price. In Queens’ Murray Hill, the typical down payment as a share of total condo price was 43.9 percent, which equates to roughly $197,528. Other Queens neighborhoods in which buyers put down a high down payment include East Flushing (40.8 percent; $228,648), Flushing (39.9 percent; $186,980) and Queensboro Hill (39.4 percent; $192,864).

Conversely, buyers in the Bronx tend to put a relatively small down payment towards their home purchase. In Soundview, for example, the typical down payment as a share of a condo’s total price was just 4.6 percent in 2015, which equates to roughly $9,365. Other Bronx neighborhoods rounded out the list of neighborhoods with the smallest down payment, including Baychester (9 percent; $11,388), Kingsbridge (10 percent; $17,500) and Bronxwood (10.6 percent; $17,735).

How We Did It

Median down payment as a share of the total price of a home is determined by mortgage data provided by the New York City Department of Finance. It is the inverse of the median loan-to-value (LTV) ratio for all homes in a geography in which mortgage data is included in the transaction’s documents. The typical down payment in dollar value is determined by multiplying the median recorded sales price in a geography by the inverse of the median LTV. This is only an approximation of a typical down payment size and is not an actual recorded number.
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