As recent proposals call for homeowners to make ten-to-20 percent down payments on their purchases, the Center for Responsible Lending says this will actually hurt the market.

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The CLR suggests that low down payment mortgages are the key to resolution, not to be confused with the sub-prime loans of the 2000s that caused the economy to crash. “Over 27 million low down payment loans were made between 1990 and 2009,” says the CLR in a recent report. “This represents almost one-quarter of the loans purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and 13 percent of total mortgage originations during this period.”

By increasing down payment requirements for homebuyers, mortgage and real estate demand will essentially decrease, notes the report. Based on average home prices, the CLR says the typical American family would have to save for fourteen years to afford a 10-20 percent down payment.

The organization instead recommends that the typical down payment requirements of the pre-crash era be reinstated to help the maximum number of Americans enjoy homeownership and restabalize the market.

“The social benefits of homeownership have been well-documented: these include better educational achievement and civic participation, improved household health, lower crime rates, and more stable communities, among others,” says the CLR.

For more information on down payment requirements, visit: http://www.responsiblelending.org/.