4 Underused Housing Hacks To Cut the True Cost of Homeownership

Once you buy a home, there are plenty of ways to trim around the edges of your budget. You can turn down the thermostat, shop around for homeowners insurance, or finally cancel that streaming service you forgot you had.But none of those moves are likely to change the cost of homeownership in a meaningful way.Some bigger savings opportunities are hiding in the mechanics of buying and owning the house itself: your mortgage terms, seller concessions, property tax assessment, and even how you use the property.Here are four lesser-known strategies that could potentially shave some serious bucks on your housing costs. Note: We use a $400,000 home for each hack to show what the savings might look like.1. Ask the seller to temporarily buy down your mortgage rateInstead of negotiating only on price, buyers may be able to ask a motivated seller to pay for a temporary mortgage rate buydown.With a 2-1 buydown, for example, the buyer's effective interest rate is reduced by 2 percentage points during the first year and 1 point during the second before returning to the full note rate.Say you buy a hypothetical $400,000 home with 20% down and a $320,000, 30-year mortgage at 6.66%. Principal and in...