Marion, you are not really in a position to buy right now if you don’t have reserves and a down payment.
Most first-time buyers don’t have the luxury of both a large down payment (e.g. 20%) AND 6 months of cash reserves. If you can find a decent loan at 5% down, then from a first-time buyer’s perspective it would be better to have larger reserves than to make a larger down payment (assuming affordable payments). That shifts more of the risk onto the lender than the borrower.
