Here's a way to save yourself some money on your new home loan. This is a good tip, but you'll have to have some money to take advantage of it.

If you can make a downpayment of 20% of the cost of your new house you will be able to avoid paying for private mortgage insurance. Banks typically require you to have private mortgage insurance when your downpayment on a house is less than 20% of the purchase price. On a $200,000 house that's a $40,000 downpayment.

Private mortgage insurance cost about $120 a month on a $200,000 house. That means if your mortgage is for 30 years, you'll end up paying about $45,000 just for private mortgage insurance.

And here's something you probably didn't know. Even with private mortgage insurance if you default on your mortgage, you don't get the insurance. The bank collects the insurance to pay off your mortgage, then forecloses on you, tossing you out of the house, and the bank turns around and sells the house on the open market.

How's that for a system. You pay the insurance premium for the bank but the bank wins if you go into default.