Saving up a down payment of 20% before buying a home may be unnecessarily prolonging your time as a renter. According to Housing Wire, this idea is one of four common misconceptions potential homebuyers have about down payments. While that type of sizeable down payment used to be the standard for most conventional loans, there are a variety of other mortgage programs available today. Qualified homebuyers can even put down as little as 3% when buying a home. That’s good news for the average renter.

With median home prices around $236,000, it could take 12.5 years to reasonably save $47,000 for a 20% down payment.

For more down payment misconceptions, read the entire article.

Image Source: Mark Moz