Closing costs first, buydown second. Use the credit to cover all of your closing costs before anything else. That keeps zero sunk cost in the loan and leaves you free to refinance later without having burned money. Then, and only then, look at applying what's left to the rate. One caution before you do: a builder or seller credit can feel like house money, and builders love that framing. There's no free money in housing. A credit is given in lieu of a lower purchase price, so you finance it in a bigger loan for as long as you hold the home. Spend it as carefully as you'd spend your own savings, because that's what it is. Points deserve a hard look, because we lean against them. Lenders price points around the average borrower keeping the loan roughly five to seven years, and you don't have that certainty; refinance within a couple of years and you waste most of what you paid to buy the rate down. Paying for a lower rate makes sense when you need it to qualify, or when you have real reason to think you won't be able to refinance later (retirement, divorce, a coming income change). There's also a third path: ask for an equivalent cut to the purchase price instead of the credit. A lower price is a permanent benefit rather than a bet on how long you keep the loan. And the buydown itself splits into temporary versus permanent, a separate trade-off worth its own look. No single answer fits everyone, and the buydown math is something some people want to see. We'll run that comparison for you on the free Roadmap conversation, both ways, with your actual numbers, so you can see the monthly cost and the break-even side by side.