There's a few contributing factors to down payments being lower. Like with FHA loans, you can have a very minimal down payment, however unlike a conventional lo

There's a few contributing factors to down payments being lower. Like with FHA loans, you can have a very minimal down payment, however unlike a conventional loan, the 'MIP' (the insurance comparable to a Conventional's PMI) will never go away on a new FHA loan if your original down payment was less than 10%. So, what a lot of people do is either just eat that extra cost (for lower cost homes, it more or less comes out to the equivalent of an additional 0.8-1%) for the life of the loan, or refinance out to a conventional loan once they're below 80% LTV. There is also the shady case of the 80/20 Mortgage. Basically, you take out one 'primary' mortgage for 80% of the home's value, and then a second mortgage or HELOC on 20% of the rest. This can in some cases be cheaper, but arguably goes against the whole spirit of PMI in the first place. (Not saying I don't have issues with the way PMI/MIP works...)