Many people may misunderstand where the focus of their tax savings efforts should be. That focus should be on tax credits, rather than on deductions.

Tax credits allows you to offset your tax liability at a rate of 100 percent per dollar spent.  What this means is that if your total federal income tax liability (including withholdings from pay) were $12,000, then, with a Tax Credit for $1,000, your total tax liability will be reduced to $11,000.  That is, 100% of the credit is used to offset that same amount of tax liability.  Although there is a laundry list of credits, some of the most popular and well known are tax credits related to higher education expenses, earned income tax credit (EITC), child rearing and clean energy alternatives.

Tax deductions are significantly different than credits;deductions only provides a fractional benefit against tax liability. Taxpayers receive a benefit of only between 10 and 35 percent (per dollar spent) for deductible expenses.
The fractional range is attributed to tax bracket: the higher the bracket, the higher percentage of tax paid against income... but also the higher the fractional benefit of a deduction. 
 
The Tax Code allows homeowners to take a deduction for paying mortgage interest on their primary home.  Depending on your income, this benefit may only amount to receiving a quarter back from Uncle Sam (25% tax rate) for every dollar spent on mortgage.  That is, imagine receiving a quarter in return for each dollar that you spend. The deduction simply acts as a partial subsidy on the payment of mortgage interest.  The deduction is a benefit, but the merit is often overplayed by individuals in the real estate industry.

The bottom line is that you should always seek out tax credits, as they are a great asset.  Whereas, a tax deduction should be treated as a double-edged sword: you do gain a fractional tax benefit, but far too many people make bad economic decisions (spend far more than they can afford for a home) under a poorly reasoned premise that it is worth it for the higher deductibility of mortgage interest and property taxes.  Taken to the extreme, it is seldom wise to accelerate the number of quarters that flow into your pocket, if for each one received, an extra dollar had to flow out.   

Here is a link to an IRS page that discusses many of the available tax credits.