At age 27, Paula Pant and her boyfriend (now husband) purchased their first home in early 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia, with a down payment of $26,000, slightly over 10% of the home's $225,000 cost.
Between the two of them, it took a year to save. While they didn't use a regimented savings budget, they averaged saving $1,000 a month each.
"I was self-employed and my income was volatile; I just adjusted to living on the lowest amount I would make a month," Pant, founder of the site Afford Anything, told Business Insider. "The month I made more, it would go to savings. I wasn't consciously thinking I was saving for a home, I was saving money for a safety net."
They purchased a triplex and moved in with their current roommates, renting out the other two units to them. The rent was enough to cover their $1,200 monthly mortgage, which brought their housing expenses down to zero, Pant said.
This is what Pant calls housing hacking, which she highly recommends to every first-time homebuyer. "If you can fill [your home] with rooms and tenants and get yourself to a point where you don't pay mortgage from your paycheck, that's a great way to start yourself in homeownership because you have so many other bills — it really changes your ability to save," she said.
It worked for Pant — she now owns her eighth home, and even though she and her husband no longer live in the triplex, they still rent it out.
But she warns there's more to save for than the down payment — it's the ongoing costs you need to keep in mind.
"There's all this stuff you never imagined you would buy — a garden hose, a lawn mower — and having money for repairs and maintenance," she said. "It takes a lot of money. Every paycheck was going to Home Depot for all the little things."