13 Essential Money-Saving Tips to Help You Buy a House for Less

For many American workers, it’s only getting harder to pay for a home. According to a report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, millions of potential homebuyers have been priced out of the market due to high interest rates and elevated home prices. Cities in California and Hawaii are revealed to be the least affordable cities in relation to income, showing a price-to-income ratio of 8 or higher.

Even when mortgage rates are low, this massive discrepancy can put the possibility of homeownership out of reach despite someone’s diligent efforts to save up. And it’s not like you can find a “20% off the house of your choosing” coupon in the weekly Pennysaver. However, there are ways to make buying a house more affordable even as property values skyrocket. To help you recognize the best savings opportunities throughout the home-buying process, we put together these essential money-saving tips for buying a house.

Who You Work With Matters

House hunting can be alternately fun and exhausting and come with a million questions. Having a great agent in your corner can help you get into your dream home.

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1. Partner with a real estate agent who’s a top negotiator.

When you need help deciding what’s appropriate to offer on a home and how to get a better deal, an agent who’s a top-tier negotiator is going to be your best friend. Tenacious buyer’s agents are committed to saving their clients money and will be able to:

• Help you get a grip on the housing market by identifying which properties are underpriced or overvalued.
• Flag you when homes they believe are a great value are coming on the market.
• Negotiate the seller down to a lower contract price when possible.
• Protect you from overpaying by writing in contingencies for the inspection and appraisal.
• Request credits and concessions to cover needed repairs based on the inspection findings.

HomeLight can recommend you to a buyer’s agent known for helping their clients save on their purchase. To find these agents, we review their sale-to-list ratio for their buy-side transactions. Sale-to-list ratio represents the percentage of a list price that an agent’s clients end up paying for a home on average.

For example, an agent with a 95% sale-to-list for buy-side transactions knocks 5% off the list price for their buyer clients on average. (Five percent on a $250,000 home amounts to a savings of $12,500 on the purchase price).

2. Time your purchase based on market cycles

Real estate prices fluctuate throughout the year. To maximize savings:

• Buy in winter: Fewer buyers mean lower prices and more negotiating power.
• Avoid peak seasons: Spring and summer tend to have higher competition and prices.
• Track interest rate trends: Buying when rates are lower saves on long-term costs.

When you hope to score a great deal on a house, you want to avoid jumping into the real estate market during peak house-hunting season. When demand exceeds supply in a market, prices will rise and make it difficult to negotiate much (if anything) off the list price. And increased competition from other buyers makes it more likely that you’ll end up in a bidding war.

Nationally, the best time to sell a home tends to be around the first two weeks of May. On the other hand, the worst time to sell nationally comes in January and February. However, these trends vary from market to market.

Find the “offseason” in your market using HomeLight’s Best Time to Sell Calculator, which uses actual transaction data to identify when sale prices peak and dip. Below, we’ve pulled some results for example cities so you can see the estimated savings:

• Los Angeles: save an estimated 3.47% by buying in January, and avoid shopping in August
• Boston: save an estimated 3.6% by buying in February, and avoid shopping in March
• Chicago: save an estimated 7.64% by buying in January, and avoid shopping in March
• Houston: save an estimated 6.52% by buying in January, and avoid shopping in September
• Seattle: save an estimated 8.89% by buying in January, and avoid shopping in April

To find out the best time to buy in your area, input your city into our Best Time to Sell Calculator. Look at the “Worst Month to Sell” in the top chart based on when sales prices tend to drop. Since our estimates are based on home closings rather than list dates, be sure to go back two to three months to determine which month you should go under contract for the best shot at a deal.

3. Improve your credit score.

Having great credit can help you save on your home purchase. Why? Because the higher your score, the better deal you can get on your mortgage. Lenders will look at that important three-digit number as a measure of how well you’ve managed and paid off debt in the past, and how likely you are to pay back this loan on time.

If you apply for a mortgage with a lower score, you’ll likely pay a higher rate to account for any perceived risk your lender takes on by giving you a mortgage. On the flip side, lenders are typically willing to offer better rates to borrowers with a strong credit history.

Typically, the lowest mortgage rates are granted to those with scores of 750 or higher, and even a fraction of a percent shaved off your mortgage rate can result in significant savings over the life of your loan.

Below, we’ve pulled data from MyFico’s Loan Savings Calculator to show you an estimate of how much mortgage rates rise as your credit score goes down based on a 30-year fixed mortgage and current interest rates* applied to the purchase of a home for the national median sale price and with 20% down payment:

Numbers courtesy of MyFICO loan savings calculator (Interest rates as of 2/19/2025)*