People talk themselves out of buying a house before they ever talk to a lender. They've absorbed this picture of the "real" buyer: 750 credit, 20% down, low debt, tidy W-2 job. And when they don't match the picture, they don't call.
So I did something kind of nerdy. I pulled every Florida loan I closed over the last two years, 102 of them, and ran the actual numbers. Not national statistics, not a survey. My files, closed right here, mostly Sarasota and the surrounding counties. Here's what the people who actually got keys looked like.
The credit scores
The median credit score across all 102 closings was 724. Solid, sure. But the median is hiding the interesting part: 29% of my closings had a score under 680, and the lowest score that closed was 583.
Break it out by program and the picture gets clearer. My conventional buyers ran high, median 778. My FHA buyers? Median 676. That's not the exception sneaking through, that's the middle of the FHA pack. Half my FHA closings were below it.
So if your score starts with a 6, you are not out of the game. You're roughly a third of my business.
The down payments
Here's the one that breaks the myth hardest. The median down payment across those 102 closings was 5%. Not 20. Five.
- 56% of my closings put down 5% or less
- More than two-thirds put down less than 10%
- Only about 30% put down 20% or more
And 18 of the 102 used a down-payment assistance program on top of that, meaning the cash they brought was lower still. (Whether assistance is available on any given week is a whole separate question, because the programs run out of funding and reload. Ask, don't assume, in either direction.)
The 20% number people carry around isn't wrong exactly. It's just answering a different question, about avoiding mortgage insurance, not about whether you can buy. Those are different questions with different math, and sometimes paying the insurance and keeping your savings is the better trade. That's a structure conversation.
The debt
Median debt-to-income ratio at closing: about 43%. Nearly half my closings were over the 43% line people quote as some kind of ceiling, and 15% closed over 50%. The programs allow more room than the internet thinks, especially FHA with the right compensating factors.
Now, qualifying at 50% and being comfortable at 50% are two different things, and I tell people that on every call. Just because you qualify for the payment doesn't mean you want the payment. But the point stands: the cutoff you've heard about is softer than advertised.
The loans themselves
- Median loan amount: about $295,000. Not jumbo territory. Regular houses.
- 90% were purchases, so this isn't refi noise skewing anything.
- Program mix: FHA led at 46 of 102, conventional right behind at 41, then VA at 11 and USDA at 4. The stereotype says FHA is a niche product. In my book it's the plurality.
What I want you to take from this
The buyers in these files aren't unicorns. They're teachers, nurses, tradespeople, retirees, first responders, self-employed folks with messy-looking income that just needed the right program. The thing they had in common wasn't a credit score. It was that they made the call and got looked at properly, usually earlier than they thought they should.
If you've been assuming you're a year or two away, maybe you are. But I'd rather run your actual numbers and tell you exactly what the gap is than have you guess. Sometimes the gap is zero and nobody ever told you.
Frequently asked questions
What's the minimum credit score to buy a house in Florida?
Program minimums go lower than most people expect (FHA reaches into the 500s with enough down payment), but the honest answer is: it depends on the whole file. In my last two years of closings, scores ran from 583 up. If you're near or above 600, it's worth a conversation today, and if you're below, it's worth a plan.
Is 5% down really normal?
It was the median in my last 102 Florida closings. More than half put down 5% or less.
Does a high DTI mean automatic denial?
No. Nearly half my recent closings were above 43% DTI. Programs differ on where the line sits and what compensating factors move it.
Are these numbers national averages?
No, and that's the point. These are my own closed Florida files, August 2024 to August 2026, computed from the closing records. Your situation is its own file.
Adam Klugh (NMLS #1596587) is a loan originator with Success Mortgage Partners in Sarasota, FL. Data reflects the author's own closed loans, August 2024–August 2026; individual results depend on the full loan file. Not a commitment to lend. Questions: 941-269-8365.
Biology grad, former firefighter, and finance nerd who structures loans to save you money. NMLS #130562.
