To afford a monthly mortgage payment, middle-class Americans need to put more than $127,000 down

That $127,750 down payment is what a household making the median income would need to put down when purchasing a typical U.S. home — valued at about $360,000 — so that the monthly mortgage payments take up no more than 30% of that household's monthly income.1 The enormous gap between the down payment needed now and five years ago underscores how the pandemic fueled a scorching-hot housing market, and why the rise in mortgage rates in the time since has cooled the market. Stubbornly high mortgage rates have ...