Treat these offers with real skepticism, because the cost is almost always built into a higher rate up front. A "free refinance within two years" or "rate-drop protection" pitch is marketing you are paying for. Builder in-house lenders and big national lenders often load points into the purchase quote to make it look competitive, then dangle a discounted future refinance to close the sale. Two mechanics are worth knowing: - The waiting period protects the lender. Many of these programs make you wait about six months before using the free refi. If a loan pays off inside the first 180 days, the originator has to return what it earned to its investor, so the wait exists for their protection. - You can always shop the refinance anywhere. If rates fall, nothing binds you to the original lender, and a sharp independent lender will usually beat the discounted-but-still-elevated offer from the shop that wrote the first loan. The same caution applies to paying points on any purchase or refinance. We lean against points as a default. Run the real break-even first, and if the points take six or seven years to pay for themselves while you might move or refinance sooner, they are rarely worth it. On the free Roadmap conversation we can model the actual break-even for your situation and hold it up against the offer in front of you.