Mortgage rates climbed above 7% in late September, putting a premium on a skill Tony Anczer has practiced for years: haggling. The Chicago-area real estate agent once flew to Tennessee to save $3,000 on a new pickup truck. When he wanted a cheaper mortgage in 2025, he took much the same approach.

Anczer was looking for something better than the 7.1% rate on the 30-year mortgage he took out in the summer of 2024. He contacted four lenders, played them against each other and ultimately refinanced into a 4.75% 15-year loan that increased his monthly payment by only about $300, he said.

Buyers are searching for ways to make home purchases palatable, if not outright possible, as hopes for lower borrowing costs give way to concerns that rates could climb further. Yet some borrowers are still managing to secure significantly cheaper financing: Around 11% snagged rates below 6% in August, according to data from Intercontinental Exchange Inc.

Those differences can add up. A 2026 Journal of Finance paper found that otherwise identical borrowers often received mortgage offers more than half a percentage point apart — a difference worth about $23,000 on a $1 million loan, according to coauthor Andreas Fuster of the Swiss Finance Institute.

The problem is some homebuyers are taking the first rate they're offered. 

"You want to find the lender who is desperate to give you a mortgage," said Brad Case, chief residential economist at Homes.com. "And you don't do that by contacting one lender."

Finding the right lender is only one strategy, however. Here's how some buyers are getting even lower rates.

Look at New Builds

In San Antonio, Realtor Tavyn Weyman has seen rates as low as 3.6% on 30-year fixed mortgages. "Anytime I have someone buying a home, I'm always asking, 'why aren't you considering a new build?'" Weyman said. "If they want a low interest rate, new construction is the best bet."

Builders can offer below-market financing often because they subsidize mortgage rates through preferred or affiliated lenders rather than cutting the home's sticker price, said Jeff Ostrowski, a housing market analyst at Bankrate. In some cases, builders advertise rates as low as 0.99%, though those offers may be temporary buydowns that step up annually over two or three years, resulting in a rate closer to the current market.  

The tradeoff, according to Weyman, is that buyers are often looking at homes farther from city centers in sprawling master-planned "super neighborhoods" with their own schools and amenities. Those developments can be 20 to 40 minutes from downtown, he said, leaving residents exposed to long commutes and rush-hour traffic. 

Consider an ARM

For those with some risk tolerance, adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, can offer some temporary relief. They start with a lower fixed mortgage for a set period — commonly five to 10 years — before resetting to prevailing market rates. A 5-year ARM averaged about 6.7% in mid-September 2026, compared with 7.08% on a 30-year fixed, according to Bankrate.

The catch is the reset. When the fixed stretch ends, your rate adjusts to whatever the market is charging at the time. ARMs earned a bad reputation in 2008 during the housing crash, though today's loans include caps that limit how high and how fast rates can climb. They can be especially powerful for buyers who can handle that jump, or who expect to sell or refinance before the adjustment kicks in.

The bigger question now is whether they're worth it. The gap between ARM and fixed rates has narrowed, meaning borrowers are taking on reset risk for a relatively modest discount, said Christopher Maloney, mortgage strategist for BOK Financial Securities. In the week of September 18, almost 10% of all mortgage applications were for adjustable rate loans, the highest since October 2025, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. 

Pledge Some Assets

Banks often reserve their most attractive loan pricing for affluent customers, who are viewed as lower-risk borrowers and more likely to become long-term clients for products ranging from auto loans to wealth management services. Borrowers with substantial deposits or investments at a bank can sometimes qualify for preferred rates.

For wealthy buyers with large investment portfolios, some brokerages such as Charles Schwab and Fidelity offer a different route altogether: a pledged asset line of credit or securities-backed line of credit, which lets investors  borrow against their portfolios rather than take out a traditional mortgage. Most programs require a portfolio of at least $100,000, though borrowers generally can't tap the full value of their holdings. Instead, brokerages determine an advance rate — the percentage of collateral's value that a lender is willing to extend as a loan or credit line to the borrower — based on factors such as the volatility of the underlying securities, portfolio concentration and a borrower's overall credit profile.

At Charles Schwab, pledge asset line originations have increased 85% since 2024, according to Jalina Kerr, Schwab's managing director of advisor services. Just under half of those lines of credit were used for a home purchase. Approval takes roughly five days, and because the financing functions much like cash in the eyes of sellers, it can give buyers a competitive edge in a bidding war.

The tradeoff is that borrowers are tying up their liquid assets as collateral and taking on risks that differ from those associated with a traditional fixed-rate mortgage. The variable rates, tied to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR), can move weekly, causing borrowing costs to fluctuate. If SOFR rates rise, for example, borrowing costs can increase and the brokerage can liquidate or sell securities at their own discretion. If markets plunge substantially, borrowers may be asked for additional collateral or partial repayment. Brokerages also typically reserve the right to liquidate pledged securities if collateral values fall below required levels, and borrowers may have limited control over which assets are sold.

Buy Points

Some borrowers go further by paying money upfront, known as points, to permanently buy down their rates. Take Anczer, for example, the Chicago-area real estate agent who bought a point to bring his rate to 4.75% from the cheapest 5.25% he was originally offered. 

Nearly 32% of mortgage borrowers who got a sub 6% rate in March 2026 did so with a permanent buydown, according to data from Intercontinental Exchange.

It might be a good strategy for those with the extra cash who are planning to stay put for seven years or longer, Andy Walden, the head of mortgage and housing market research at Intercontinental Exchange, said. That's about how long it typically takes to break even from the lower monthly payments. 

Walden suggested judging the rates on the APR, or annual percentage rate, which factors in the interest rate as well as fees and points for a truer apples-to-apples comparison. But borrowers should pay close attention to the fees, he added. One lender might have a lower APR, a figure that assumes the borrower stays in the loan for 30 years, though the savings may evaporate for homeowners who sell or refinance sooner. 

Assume a Mortgage (If You Can)

Perhaps the hardest route is also the most tantalizing — taking over someone else's mortgage with an already low rate. 

An assumable mortgage allows buyers to take over an existing loan, including its interest rate. With millions of homeowners still holding mortgages below 4%, the strategy is attractive to buyers searching for an alternative to today's borrowing costs.

"The simplest way to think about it is that the buyer is not just buying the home. They are also getting access to the seller's existing financing," said Raunaq Singh, founder and chief executive officer of Roam, a website that aims to connect sellers and buyers of assumable mortgages.

The catch is the strategy is only available on certain loans. For the most part, that means government-backed mortgages from the Federal Housing Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs and US Department of Agriculture.

Even when a home has an assumable mortgage, buyers must still come up with enough cash to cover the difference between the seller's remaining loan balance and the home's purchase price. In a market where many homeowners have built substantial equity, that can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. In theory, assumable loans could be available on roughly one in five mortgaged homes. In practice, finding one and successfully navigating the assumption process can be difficult. In 2025, nearly 25,000 or just .62% of home listings advertised an assumable mortgage, up from .53% the year prior, according to Realtor.com. That's a small fraction of the roughly 12 million government-backed mortgages that are eligible for assumption.

There's also a ceiling on how much the government will back. In high-cost markets such as New York, loan limits are around $1 million, making the strategy less useful for buyers at the upper end of the market.

Let Them Fight

There can be value in sticking with a lender you already know. Becki Danchik, a real estate broker at Coldwell Banker Warburg, said one of her clients locked in a 5.8% mortgage rate at Bank of America, helped by a longstanding banking relationship and substantial family assets.

But those types of relationship-based discounts aren't available to everyone. For most borrowers, the most universal mortgage hack is also the simplest: comparison shopping.

Bradley St Rohrs, vice president Chevy Chase Financial in Chevy Chase, Maryland, wanted to see just how much a determined shopper could save. He sent the same email to 10 lenders simultaneously, describing a hypothetical $600,000 purchase in Montgomery County, Maryland, and then told each one he had a lower offer. He got multiple reductions with a $442 a month spread between the highest and lowest quotes.

The takeaway is to try to stick to email and reach out to different lenders simultaneously. Borrowers should also try different types of lenders, including credit unions, online lending portals and mortgage brokers who can access wholesale rates from multiple lenders at once. 

Charley Gibney and their wife were getting ready to pull the trigger on a $1 million home purchase near Albany, New York, when they got a nagging feeling that somebody was offering a cheaper rate. In-mid April, when rates were hovering around 6.3%, they got a 5.75% rate from a company called Reliant Home Funding in Melville, New York, Gibney said.  

Gregory Parmiter, chief business development officer at Reliant, said the savings come from online direct lenders operating on thinner margins.  

"I don't have 15 layers of management and that stuff starts to add up," Parmiter said.

As long as mortgage rates remain stubbornly high, buyers should keep treating financing as part of the negotiation rather than a take-it-or-leave-it offer.