Start with the principle: ask only for what you need, and if there is negotiating room left, a price cut usually beats a credit. A well-represented seller looks at net proceeds, so a dollar off the price and a dollar of credit cost them the same. The price cut also shrinks your loan and your payment for as long as you hold the home. On which buydown to structure, the two split cleanly: - Permanent buydown: in our book it earns its keep mainly when you need it to qualify. Points only pencil if you hold the loan past the break-even, often around five years, and do not expect to refinance. We lean against them as a default. - Temporary buydown: a short-term payment bridge, priced like one. Common structures are the 1-0 (1% lower for one year, the cheapest), the 2-1 (2% lower year one, 1% lower year two), and the 3-2-1. The appeal is early affordability while you wait for a chance to refinance. The risk is where buyers get hurt. If you paid up on price to fund the subsidy and rates do not cooperate, the bridge expires and you are carrying the full note rate. We have watched buyers get caught exactly that way when their temporary buydowns ran out and the refinance window they were counting on never opened. So structure the concession around what you actually need to qualify and hold, and remember what a concession is: your own money, financed into the price. Nobody can promise the rate move you are hoping for.