A loan origination fee is largely a dinosaur, discount points are a separate animal, and ARMs are where you'll still see both. The origination fee was a charge lenders added purely for profit on top of the rate, and you rarely see one on a competitive quote anymore. A discount point, by definition, is money paid to buy your rate below the lender's zero-point "par" rate. On a straightforward 30-year fixed, seeing points offered without an origination fee is normal. ARMs often carry both, for a reason. Lenders don't expect to hold an ARM on their books nearly as long as a fixed loan, so they're less willing to absorb the upfront cost of an attractive headline rate themselves. The origination fee recovers some of that while the advertised start rate stays low. Our advice: don't pay discount points on an ARM. Points only make sense, when they make sense at all, on a rate you'll keep long enough to earn the money back, and an adjustable rate won't sit still that long. You'd be paying up front for a benefit that expires. We lean against points as a default anyway. If you ever buy a rate down, do it on a fixed loan you intend to hold, with the break-even math in front of you, as your own deliberate choice.