The first thing you must do is familiarize yourself with any first time home owners' incentives that your bank (or other banks) may be offering. This could be a bank-engineered benefit to boost the uptake of their mortgage product or it could be a government initiated and funded incentive. There is presently a tax credit for first time home owners that can be as high as USD 8000, a substantial amount by any standard for the first time owner. But if you are not aware of this tax credit, you might end up losing out on the benefits.