News Mortgage News Uncle Sam Helps First-Time Homebuyers With Down Payment Off the Charts: The Visual Says It All By The Balance Editors The Balance Editors We’re a team of writers and editors with decades of experience researching and answering questions about personal finances. We believe everyone should feel confident when making money decisions, and that passion drives us to make The Balance the best place to learn about finances. learn about our editorial policies Published on February 9, 2022 Photo: Hispanolistic / Getty Images Wondering where first-time homebuyers are getting the money for today’s increasingly exorbitant down payments? Those stimulus checks most of us received from the government, for one. A recent survey of 215 first-time buyers shows what some economists have suspected all along—that many people took those pandemic relief checks (three rounds totaling up to $3,200 per person in 2020 and 2021) and applied them toward down payments. As the chart below shows, it was the second-most common answer the real estate firm Redfin received from survey respondents who were asked how they accumulated the money for a house. As houses have been in high demand (thanks partly to work-from-home trends) and home prices have risen rapidly, so have the size of down payments. The median down payment in the third quarter of 2021 was $27,500, 41% higher than a year earlier, according to a recent report from ATTOM Data. “Plenty of Americans, particularly those who are in a position to buy a home, are now in a better financial position than before,” Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said in a statement. “Stimulus payments provided a lot of Americans not only with necessary relief, but extra money in their pockets." Have a question, comment, or story to share? You can reach Diccon at dhyatt@thebalance.com. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit Sources The Balance uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Redfin. “1 in 4 First-Time Homebuyers Are Using Stimulus Money For Down Payment.” ATTOM Data. “Top 10 U.S. Metros with Highest Home-Purchase Down Payments.”