Can you use earnest money towards closing costs or down payment?

[Anonymous]

My agent said 1% of sales price for EMD was typical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Geez. We put in $30k on a $735k house. The house ended up appraising for $35K less than the sale price so we would've had to bring that much to closing anyway but yeah, I'm surprised that people are able to bring so little EMD for $800-900+K sales!

Why little?
15-20K is big enough to show that you're serious and won't walk away leaving EMD behind, but at the same time not huge to freeze for 30-45 days

[Anonymous]

we did 5k on 870k but that was last year when the market wasn't as hot and there were only four offers. In a hot market a larger deposit is more attractive.

[Anonymous]

We put $20,000 for $700,000. I don't get why more would be needed. Like the PP said, it shows you're serious about the purchase but you're not giving away the farm if something unexpected happens.

[Anonymous]

We put a $10,000 EMD on our $475k house that we closed on in March.

[Anonymous]

We put $5K on a $600K house. I was shocked that we had to put down so little earnest money, but the sellers didn't ask us to increase our EMD, so we didn't.

[Anonymous]

Wow, we only had to give $1000 but we are only buying a $250K house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, we only had to give $1000 but we are only buying a $250K house.

Are you in the dc area?

[Anonymous]

We just this week did 5k on a 685 offer and were Accepted.