Yes. Taking a temporary buydown credit now doesn't block a refinance later, on FHA or any other loan type. If a refinance opportunity opens up, you're free to take it. Better, the buydown is structured in your favor if you refinance early. The buydown money sits in a subsidy account that covers the gap between your reduced payment and the note payment each month, and if you refinance before that account is exhausted, the remaining balance gets applied to reduce your payoff. We had a client in Texas whose leftover buydown balance of about $2,000 knocked his roughly $300,000 payoff down to about $298,000 at refinance. Unused subsidy comes back to you as a smaller loan balance. The honest caveat is the timing itself. Nobody can promise where rates go, so don't treat next year's drop as a given when deciding whether the buydown is worth taking in the first place. Judge the deal on the permanent note rate you land at and the value of the credit today. If rates do improve later, an FHA Streamline (reduced documentation, no appraisal) is a clean way to capture it, and your leftover buydown funds ride along to shrink the balance.