Down Payment Help:
Many cities in the Bay Area have loan programs to help with down payments for first time moderate income buyers.Included are: Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose. Check with city hall in each case. Separately, there is a program called: Mortgage Credit Certificate, that is run at city and county levels. It converts part of your mortgage interest tax deduction into a direct tax credit through the original lender of the mortgage.Do a web search of your city or county and the words "mortgage credit certificate".

Good luck.