downpayment requirement -- historically?

You can get an FHA loan with as little as 3.5% down. There is also the VA program that is 100% no money down along with USDA Rural which is also 100% no money down. All loan programs are credit score driven so depending on what your credit score is can make a difference on whether you would qualify or not. The USDA Rural program is only allowed if the property is located in the areas allowed by USDA Rural. There is a website that you can put the address in and the site will tell you if the property fits into the eligible area.Are you looking to Purchase?

Prior to the bubble, you could get an FHA loan for 3% down, (currently 3.5%) VA was and is still zero down, and USDA was and still is zero down. The conventional products were partial loans, 80% first, 20% 2nd, and many different variation. Now conventional you can do as little as 3% down, but you have to have superior credit, and the monthly mortgage insurance isn't cheap. WilliamAcres.com

To answer your question directly: No, I do not know what the down payment requirements were, "In the 90s, 80s, 70s, 60s..." mainly because the guidelines are changing constantly. I think that we as loan officers have just ebbed and flowed with changes, learning them and helping folks get into their homes. For FHA, if you really wanted to know, you could read through the HUD Mortgagee Letters to find the changes noted in the mortgagee letters located here: http://www.hud.gov/offices/adm/hudclips/letters/mortgagee/ They go back all the way to 1976.If you have more questions, feel free to contact me in my Wisconsin office: http://www.closewithmichael.com/Contact

@William is correct...In other words, we are right back where we started from (lol)... For all the hype about the difficulty of mortgage qualification, I find it fairly amusing that the requirements are (in large part) exactly what they were when my career started. Adding to the cycle of "what goes around, comes around".