Seems contrary to be talking about saving money when buying a home. So, I'll say it in another way, buying a home could cost you $x whereas if you read this article you can save $y while buying the same home thus keeping more money in your pocket. I'm sure this clears it up for you, but in the event that is hasn't please keep reading.
Buying a home using a no down payment or low down payment mortgage program. Even if you have money in the bank and you can put 20% down on a home, you may not want to. Especially with the state of the housing market. Why throw your hard earned cash into a home through your down payment when you can borrow most of the money you need to buy a home? In some instances you may not need any down payment. Loan programs to consider for low down payment (3.5%) include: FHA loans. Loans to consider for 100% financing (0.0% down payment) are VA loans and USDA loans.
A second tip for saving money on a home purchase is a no cost mortgage. Don't be fooled however by the name of this mortgage. All mortgages have costs associated with them. However, with this mortgage you can get a slightly higher interest rate which will allow the lender to pay some or all of your closing costs for you. With this as the case you could save 3-5% of your home's sales price (the typical amount charged for closing costs above and beyond your down payment) by increasing your mortgage interest rate thus increasing your monthly mortgage payment.
The last tip that I'm going to suggest to you is centered on your credit report and more importantly your credit score. The bottom line here is that you should be doing all that you can to keep your credit report clean from late payments, and collection accounts and high balance to credit limit ratios (manage your debt). Keeping your credit report clean of these issues will go a long way to protecting and keeping your credit score as high as possible.
As you start the mortgage process (at least 90 days before) stop applying for credit and stop adding to your debt. If you have collection accounts make sure you check with a loan officer to see if you should pay them off (you may not have to - and if you do you could actually kill your score in the short term). Another thing you should do is do not close out any accounts - especially if they are older. Older open credit accounts can help your scores.
Bottom line here - speak to a loan officer about your credit report and credit scores long in advance of the time when you want to apply for a mortgage; you may have some strategy to put into play to get your scores back up.
Beyond this - less nights out on the town, stop going to Starbucks and sell the Escalade and you might find yourself with more money in the bank than you used to. As for me, I gave up the daily Starbucks run years ago - but not because I wanted to save money it was because I wanted to save my body.
