In the early '90's, you needed 20% down and had to pay for mortgage insurance until your mortgage went down to 75% of the value and if you put 25% down you didn't need the insurance. The blame is on the greedy mortgage companies and the banks that backed them! I had to fight with the motgage company to get a "fixed" rate as they kept pushing an ARM and didn't want to give me anything else. I went to quite a few of them until I got a "fixed" rate mortgage.