I’m good with 5% - can’t believe this was rejected. Even FHA’s traditional 3% would be better if it were “real” money - as of now the 3% can come from a “gift” or the Ameridream thing, which is basically a con.
RockinRight, I know people who have been gifted FHA 3 percent down payment and have had no problems paying it back. Never a late payment on the mortgage etc. The only issue was monthly cash flow didn’t allow for a huge mess of savings to have their own down payment of thousands of dollars. But, they have had no problems.
I don’t see why a gift is a problem IF people can show they have a history of on-time payments for other bills.
Only to offer my own experience here. I was living in Germany and did the house purchase thing. So I started dealing with German banks. NO German bank would deal with me unless I put down twenty percent (this was 1993, and little has changed).
I had enough to put down about 11 percent...so I was hooked up with a insurance company and the deal was simple...they’d cover me for the other 9 nine percent if I’d buy a insurance/investment type policy of theirs. Cost? $280 a month for 12 years. Half went toward their “loan”...and I barely made 3 percent gain a year on the other half of the deal over the twelve years. Yes, it was a lousy deal, but considering zero options...it was the only thing I could do.
Mortgage failures do occur in Germany...but it’s fairly rare and always due to job loss.