How much money should you keep in a savings account? Saving for a house

I would probably keep it in savings. While a 10% return would be nice, a 10% loss would piss me off way too much to risk it (assuming stock mutual funds). I wouldn't think a "safe" investment like muni bonds or something like that would be worth the time for the little bit of gain. A lot easier to address the monthly budget.

I mean to be honest, you could probably put half in a conservative bond fund and at least earn 3-4%.

How long will it take you to save the other 20K?

Can you identify a conservative bond fund paying 4%?

Shouldn't time be a factor? For example if you're not buying a house for ten years you could invest 50k with near certainty you'll make money. If you're trying to buy a house next year maybe keep that 50k in a savings account where there's no rewards but no risk either.

Sure. I've been in one for almost a year. It's moved $0.34 since I e owned it. Pays around 4%. PONCX.

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more important question in this scenario (and likely to be a contentious one) is if the smart thing to do is putting 70k down.

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What percentage of a house value do you consider smart? 10%? 20/
%?

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What percentage of a house value do you consider smart? 10%? 20/
%?

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How long are you going to live in the house?

If 5-10 years, id put minimum.

If longer, I'd put enough to get a conventional loan, which would be 5 or 10 percent I think?

If forever home, put down as much as you want?

It's honestly up to you. Some people would rather put a bulk in the market getting a return at a better percent that the mortgage rate.

Either way you get equity.

Keep in mind that when trying secure a loan, a lender will require you to show the last 2-3 months of your bank statements, and they want to see that your down payment amount has been in one account for that time period. So I recommend putting and keeping that money in the same savings account for at least 2 months. Don't go moving large amounts of money around.

It'll vary based on the person and the scenario.

Assuming decent/good credit, I'd put enough to get you within a .5-1% of prime.

Some people would say automatically put down 20% to avoid PMI. But I would argue that it merely factors into the math, not serves as an absolute. If Interest + PMI is still less than the expected return from a diverse index fund, the smarter move is still investing.

The one absolute I would say is to NOT get an FHA loan with PMI. With conventional, you can always get a bank to remove it after reaching 20% equity without refinancing; and that equity can come from market growth as well.