Coming up with a down payment is often one of the biggest hurdles for homebuyers. The good news for homebuyers is that the time it takes to save for a down payment has decreased in recent years. The bad news is that the median down payment is still about double what it was before the pandemic.
It took the typical household seven years to save for a down payment in 2025, down from a peak of 12 years in 2022, according to an analysis from Realtor.com. The analysis assumes households save 5.1% of their income — the 2025 national average savings rate — toward a down payment.
However, with home prices steadily increasing in several cities around the country, the amount required for a competitive down payment is also up.
“Higher home prices and intensified competition have pushed typical down payments higher, at the same time that inflation and rising household expenses have reduced savings rates,” Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, said. “Although conditions have improved since 2022, today’s timeline shows that saving for a home takes meaningfully longer than it did before the pandemic, especially in high-cost markets.”
During the third quarter of 2019, the average buyer paid about $13,900 for a down payment. In the third quarter of 2025, buyers paid $30,400, according to Realtor.com.
In larger metropolitan areas with extremely high home prices, it will obviously take longer to save for a down payment. According to Realtor.com, the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, California, housing market has the longest wait for a down payment at 36.5 years.
“In high-cost markets, the typical down payment alone exceeds a full year of household income,” Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com, said. “That reality makes homeownership feel unattainable for many buyers, particularly younger households trying to enter the market for the first time.”
Luckily, there are still affordable markets where it takes less than seven years to save for a down payment. Here are eight of the largest US housing markets with the shortest time to save for a down payment.
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