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Marketing Pulse

At 7.33%, give your agent partners a buydown one-pager

With Bankrate's 30-year at the top of its 90-day range, a seller-paid buydown sheet is a concrete tool your agents can bring to this fall's negotiations.

Tuesday, September 29, 2026 30Y 7.33%15Y 6.70%5/1 ARM 6.87%

Rates moved overnight, and that changes the week's marketing job. Bankrate's 30-year is 7.33% this morning, up from 7.22% yesterday and now the top of its 90-day range (6.47%–7.33%), with BEA's August PCE report Wednesday, September 30 and the September jobs report Friday, October 2 still ahead. Zillow, as reported by The MortgagePoint, said fall can give buyers more room to negotiate but that rising Treasury yields threaten to eat into those savings. That is the opening: when the rate is the obstacle and sellers are negotiating, the conversation between you and your agent partners is about how to turn a seller concession into a lower payment.

The math is the message. On a $400,000 loan at 7.33%, principal and interest runs about $2,750 a month, against about $2,520 at the 6.47% low of the 90-day range, roughly $230 a month more. A 2-1 temporary buydown funded by the seller brings the first year's rate to 5.33% and the second to 6.33%: about $2,229 a month in year one and $2,484 in year two, before settling at $2,750 in year three. The subsidy that covers those two years comes to about $9,460 on that loan. Applied instead as a price cut that comes straight off the loan amount, the same $9,460 lowers the payment by about $65 a month. Side by side, that is a sheet an agent can put in front of a listing agent this week. Confirm your investor's buydown rules and how the borrower qualifies before anything goes out.

Package it as a one-page PDF for each active agent partner: the payment at today's rate, the buydown schedule, the seller's cost, and a line reminding the buyer that the rate returns to the note rate in year three. Keep the same numbers in a short social post for buyers, so the agent and you are telling the same story. Yesterday's plan still stands for the report-day posts; this is the purchase-side piece that pairs with it.

Do this today

build the buydown one-pager on a $400,000 example, send it to your three most active agent partners with a note offering to run it on any listing they are negotiating this week, and check the ad copy against the Regulation Z payment-disclosure rule below before anything is posted.

Borrower segments to act on today

Active purchase buyers to show a seller-paid buydown

Buyers in motion at a 7.33% market rate are the ones a seller-paid buydown helps right now; a year-one payment near $2,229 on $400K versus $2,750 at the note rate is a concrete ask for their agent to take into negotiation.

active loans · purchases
Active FHA purchases to pair with a buydown quote

Bankrate's FHA 30-year is 7.02%, the high since the series resumed in mid-August; putting a buydown schedule next to their FHA payment gives these buyers one more lever in this fall's negotiations.

active loans · purchases · fha

Today’s content angles

Social post

Seller-paid buydown explainer for fall buyers

Buying this fall? Here's a number worth knowing. On a $400,000 home loan, today's payment runs about $2,750 a month in principal and interest. With a seller-paid 2-1 buydown, the first year could run about $2,229 a month and the second about $2,484, before settling at the full payment in year three. It's a seller concession that goes straight to your monthly payment. Message me BUYDOWN and I'll run it on the home you're looking at, with every term spelled out. Example: $400,000 loan, 30-year fixed at 7.33%, [down payment]% down, [APR]% APR; the payment steps up in years two and three.

Tactics worth stealing

A quoted payment triggers full ad disclosures

The moment an ad quotes a payment amount, Regulation Z treats it as a trigger term: the ad must also clearly state the down payment, the terms of repayment (including any change in payment, like a buydown's step-up), and the APR, noting if the rate can increase. A buydown post that shows only the year-one payment is the version that falls short; show the full schedule and the APR alongside it.

CFPB Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.24(d)