The 5 U.S. cities where homebuyers plan the biggest down payments

Coming up with a down payment has become one of the hardest parts of buying a home for many Americans. Renters who start running the numbers often find that the lump sum a lender expects before agreeing to a loan outweighs any worry about the monthly mortgage payment itself. Buyers in expensive coastal cities face a steeper climb than buyers inland, since home prices set the baseline for how much cash a lender expects up front. The gap between markets has grown wide enough that a single paycheck can cover a down payment in one metro area and barely dent one in another.

Buyers in their 20s plan for a median down payment of about $41,000, the smallest amount among any age group in the analysis. Buyers born between 1981 and 1996 plan for $65,000, tying the oldest buyers in the sample for the largest contribution. Buyers in their 40s and 50s fall in between, planning for just over $56,000. Across the nation's largest metro areas, the typical planned down payment lands around $55,000. Buyers in their 20s are working with roughly a quarter less cash than that overall median.

LendingTree tracked more than 130,000 mortgage purchase inquiries submitted through its platform across the 50 largest U.S. metro areas between January 2025 and May 2026, sorting the results by both age and location to see where buyers plan to put down the most cash. Five metro areas stand out for down payments well above the national median, and four of them sit in a single state.

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San Jose, Calif., sits at the top of the entire ranking. The median planned down payment across every generation of buyers here reaches $190,000. No other metro area among the 50 covered by the analysis comes close. Every generation of buyers in San Jose plans to put down at least $115,000. Millennial buyers push well past that floor. Their median planned contribution of $250,000 stands as the largest figure recorded for any generation in any of the 50 metros studied. Only San Jose's millennial buyers reach that level, and their down payment runs nearly four times the $65,000 millennials plan to put down nationally. Baby boomers in San Jose plan a down payment close to the metro's overall median.

Gen Z buyers here plan to put down $115,000 as well, matching the boomer median in the same market. Gen Z's down payment in San Jose runs nearly three times the roughly $41,000 that Gen Z buyers plan nationally. San Jose and San Francisco are the only two metro areas in the study where Gen Z buyers plan a down payment equal to 20% of the purchase price. Younger buyers in nearly every other high-cost metro plan for 10% or 15% of the purchase price instead. San Jose's home prices make a smaller down payment percentage far harder to justify to a lender. Buyers without six figures in savings are effectively priced out of competing here, regardless of age or income level.

The gap between San Jose and the cheapest metro areas in the study puts the disparity in sharp relief. Buyers in San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Memphis, Tenn., plan a median down payment of just $33,750, less than a fifth of San Jose's figure. Matt Schulz, LendingTree's chief consumer finance analyst, said the size of a down payment often tells the story of a local housing market, and few markets tell a starker story than San Jose. Younger buyers aren't necessarily putting less down because they want to, Schulz added, a point San Jose illustrates directly since even its Gen Z buyers plan six-figure contributions most buyers elsewhere never approach.

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LendingTree ranks San Francisco second, with a median planned down payment of $170,000 across every generation of buyers. Millennial buyers here plan to put down $195,000. Only San Jose's millennial median is larger among the 50 metros in the study. Gen Z buyers in San Francisco plan a down payment of $105,000. Older generations in the city plan for noticeably more, but San Francisco's Gen Z buyers still put down more than double the roughly $41,000 median that Gen Z buyers plan nationally.

San Francisco and San Jose are the only two metro areas in the study where Gen Z buyers plan a down payment equal to 20% of the purchase price. Younger buyers in almost every other market included in the analysis plan for 10% or 15% instead. Home prices in San Francisco leave little room for buyers of any age to negotiate down the size of their opening bid.

San Francisco's overall median down payment runs more than $115,000 above the national median of $55,000. Closing a difference of that size before submitting an offer takes years of additional saving for a typical household. The buyers who do compete for homes in San Francisco tend to be established earners rather than first-time purchasers straight out of school. Only two other metro areas in the entire study come within $75,000 of San Francisco's overall median, and both of them sit closer to the top of the ranking than the bottom. New York, the nation's largest metro area by population, plans a median down payment of just $95,000, roughly $75,000 below San Francisco's figure despite New York's own reputation for expensive housing. Seattle lands even lower at $93,750. The comparison shows how far San Francisco's housing costs have separated from other major U.S. cities, even ones widely considered expensive in their own right.

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Los Angeles ranks third, with a median planned down payment of $115,000 across every generation of buyers combined. The Los Angeles figure matches San Jose's floor for its lowest-planning generation, even though San Jose's top-end numbers run much higher. Los Angeles is also one of 11 metro areas in the study where the median planned down payment equals 20% of the purchase price rather than a smaller share. New York and Chicago are the only other metro areas among the nation's three largest by population that also fall into that 20% group. A 20% down payment forces buyers to set aside a much bigger share of a home's price than the 10% or 15% shares common in more affordable metro areas. On a home priced at $600,000, the difference between a 10% and a 20% down payment amounts to $60,000 in additional cash a buyer has to raise before closing.

Los Angeles buyers face that math on top of some of the highest home prices in the country, which explains why the metro's overall median down payment lands so far above the $55,000 median across all 50 cities in the study. Competing for a home in Los Angeles increasingly requires either a high income, existing home equity, or family help, since saving $115,000 from scratch on a typical salary takes many buyers the better part of a decade.

Schulz, LendingTree's chief consumer finance analyst, noted that a bigger down payment doesn't mean homeownership is out of reach, but it does mean many first-time buyers have less room for error than previous generations did. Los Angeles illustrates that shrinking margin clearly, since a $115,000 down payment leaves little cushion for the moving costs, repairs, and closing fees that come with any home purchase. Buyers who stretch to hit a $115,000 down payment often arrive with less in reserve than buyers in cheaper metro areas who put down a smaller percentage of a lower purchase price.

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LendingTree ranks San Diego fourth, with a median planned down payment of $101,250 across every generation of buyers. San Diego is also part of the group of 11 metro areas where the median planned down payment equals 20% of the purchase price. Seattle, Miami, Washington, and Philadelphia share that same 20% threshold, showing that high down payment percentages aren't limited to California's priciest coastal markets. San Diego's ranking puts it just ahead of Boston, even though the two metro areas land at the exact same dollar figure. The distinction between fourth and fifth place in this study comes down to how the underlying figures round, not a meaningful gap in what buyers actually pay.

San Diego's down payments run consistently high across every generation measured, without the wide gap between youngest and oldest buyers seen in San Jose or San Francisco. Home prices in San Diego, rather than any single generation's spending habits, appear to be driving the entire market toward larger down payments. A buyer earning a typical local salary in San Diego needs years of dedicated saving, family assistance or proceeds from a previous home sale to reach a down payment near six figures, and the same math applies whether that buyer is 26 or 56.

California claims four of the five spots at the top of the ranking, and San Diego's presence on that list underscores how widely the state's affordability crunch extends beyond San Francisco and Los Angeles. Smaller California metro areas built their reputations on relative affordability compared with the state's biggest cities, but San Diego's down payment figures put it much closer to the state's most expensive markets than to the cheaper ones. Buyers weighing a move to San Diego for lower costs than San Francisco or Los Angeles should note that the savings show up in the total purchase price more than in the down payment itself, since the percentage buyers are expected to put down stays fixed at 20% across all three cities.

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LendingTree places Boston as the only metro area outside California among the top five, with a median planned down payment of $101,250 across every generation of buyers. Boston's figure puts it well ahead of every other East Coast metro area in the study, including New York, which plans a median down payment of $95,000 despite its larger population and higher profile as a housing market. Boston is also one of the 11 metro areas where the median planned down payment equals 20% of the purchase price, putting it in the same tier as San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego on that measure even though its overall dollar figure is lower. The city's universities, hospitals, and technology employers draw a steady stream of high earners into the local housing market, which keeps demand strong even as the region's housing stock remains limited by age and geography.

Buyers competing in Boston face a market where six-figure down payments have become the norm rather than the exception. Boston's position on this list puts it closer to San Diego and Los Angeles than to more affordable East Coast metro areas, such as Philadelphia, where buyers plan for a smaller overall figure despite Philadelphia sharing Boston's 20% down payment threshold. Anyone hoping to buy in Boston without a six-figure down payment in hand is likely to find their options limited to smaller, older properties at the edges of the market. The metro area's combination of high demand and constrained supply leaves buyers with little leverage to negotiate a smaller opening bid, regardless of how many decades they have lived in the region or how strong their credit history looks on paper.

Boston's appearance on this list alongside four California metro areas shows that steep down payments aren't purely a West Coast phenomenon. A concentration of high-paying jobs and a shortage of new housing can push a market into six-figure territory no matter which coast it sits on.