<prompt> Human: Im 20 years old and have been thinking about my future and where I want to live. I plan on one day buying a house, for which I will need a down payment of course. I currently have no real money in savings, and no inheritance. Kinda poor. Assuming by the time I get out of college I can find a decent starter job I live in NYC and plan on moving out eventually, how would I go about saving up 50-80k to put a down payment without having to take forever? My down payment estimates are based on houses Ive looked at online. This is all purely speculation, but I do wanna be ready unlike my parents who put down a pathetic 4 on their house. I am also assuming I can find a job out of college that will pay at least 40k a year. more like praying TL;DR: I want to save up money for a down payment on a house that may be 50-80k, how do I do generate this kind of money before I die? Currently 20-year-old college student. Edit: Thank you all for the responses. I definitely learned a lot. Including that its not totally necessary to put down 20.  <response>: Mortgage lender out in California, here.Ill tell you what I see: Younger people put down significantly less than 20 and refinance once they have 20 equity through a combination of appreciation and additional savings, or Younger people get significant help from parents either via a large sum of money or parents letting them live rent free with them for an extra 5 years after college, or Younger people that have very high paying jobs, generally in the tech sector.The notion of a younger person with a middle class job, healthy-but-not-exorbitant income, and without family wealth saving up 20 within 5 years of graduating college... I wish I could tell you that it still happens. I wish I could tell you that I frequently see that. I dont. Honestly, it saddens me.Blame the economy, blame the 1, or put on your old man pants and blame the spending habits of younger folks these days old economy Steve: , but thats the current state of achieving homeownership that I see.Enter FHA financing with 3.5 down, stage left. Everyone being objective will tell you that mortgage insurance is a complete waste of your money to the tune of several hundred dollars a month, and they are correct. The good news is that as of January 2015, FHA mortgage insurance is about 30 cheaper per month, meaning some of the old stigma against FHA is slightly overstated. 