You don't say how old you are or how long you have been working. Some people can't save for a down payment. To save the first thing you need to do is establish a lifestyle that does not consume all your income. Again zip code matters, cost of living matters. Disregarding interest or appreciation saving $20,000 requires saving the equivalent of $200 a month for 100 months (about 8 years).

Slightly off topic but having a student loan makes this almost impossible unless you just default,, don't make the student loan payments and put the money into savings instead so you can buy the house. Might be hard to get a mortgage if you are in default on a student loan. Catch 22.

When borrowing money consider the return on your investment of borrowed capital. Borrow $20,000 for school, When will that investment break even. If it raises your income from $15 per hour to $20 per hour and it takes you 4 years to get a degree then the loan pays for itself in (disregarding interest) 18 years. Including the impacts of interest makes the payback even longer. If it takes you more than 4 years to earn the degree then the payback it longer.

Borrow $200,000 to buy a house, if it saves you $100 a month in rent and $1,800 a year in income taxes after the same 18 years it took to pay back the smaller student loan the mortgage has paid back $54,000 but you did miss any appreciation on your $20,000 down payment (reasonably could have been $9,000).

Any person must start saving some time or another otherwise they will be poor forever. Bite the bullet, move, cut out spending, take a second or third job, do whatever it takes to get to where you can save now for a brighter future.

TEK