If you’re trying to buy a home, affordability is probably what keeps you up at night. And rates just moved the wrong way again — the 30-year fixed averaged 6.95% on September 17, up from 6.76% the week before and 6.26% a year ago.
You can’t do anything about that number. But your mortgage rate — the one you personally get — can differ from the headline average by a meaningful margin, and that part is yours to influence.
Lever one: shop more than one lender
This is the biggest one, and it’s the one buyers skip most.
Freddie Mac’s research found that getting one extra quote saves the average borrower around $600 over the life of the loan, and three quotes up to $1,200. LendingTree’s marketplace data puts the potential savings far higher for borrowers who compare aggressively.
Two practical notes. Collect your quotes within the same few days, because rates move daily and a Monday quote isn’t comparable to a Thursday one. And multiple mortgage inquiries inside a short shopping window count as a single inquiry for credit scoring purposes — so shopping around doesn’t damage your score the way people fear.
Lever two: your credit score
Your credit score is the single biggest personal input into your mortgage rate, because lenders price risk and your score is the shorthand. The difference between a 680 and a 760 can be a noticeable spread on the same loan, same day, same lender. If an adjustable rate is among the quotes you are weighing, the math on how those reset is worth running before you compare payments.
If you’re six months out from buying, this is where your effort pays best: bring balances down relative to limits, don’t close old accounts, and don’t open new ones. If you’re thirty days out, leave it alone entirely — and don’t finance a car or furniture between pre-approval and closing.
Lever three: the loan shapes your mortgage rate
Conventional, FHA, VA, and USDA loans all price differently. So does the term. The 15-year fixed averaged 6.26% the same week the 30-year sat at 6.95% — a sizeable gap, though the monthly payment is considerably higher.
VA deserves a specific mention. If you’re eligible, it typically means no down payment and no mortgage insurance, which changes the math more than any rate shopping will.
Adjustable-rate loans start lower and move later. They can make sense if you’re confident you’ll sell or refinance inside the fixed period — but that’s a bet, and it should be a deliberate one rather than a way to reach a payment you can’t otherwise afford.
The advice that doesn’t travel well to New Jersey
You’ll see a lot of writing right now suggesting you buy new construction, because builders are offering rate buydowns to move inventory. Nationally that’s true and it’s good advice.
Here, it mostly isn’t available. As I wrote recently, new homes in the Northeast are the most expensive in the country — a median around $815,600, roughly double the national figure. There simply isn’t the volume of spec inventory in Monmouth and Ocean that produces aggressive builder incentives in Texas or Florida.
Where you can find something similar is a seller buydown on a listing that’s been sitting. A seller carrying an empty house will sometimes contribute toward buying your rate down, and dollar for dollar that often does more for your monthly payment than an equivalent price cut. Ask about it on anything that’s been on the market a while.
One New Jersey option worth checking
The New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency runs first-time buyer and down payment assistance programs with their own rate structures. Eligibility depends on income and county, and the programs change, so it’s worth a look at njhousing.gov or a conversation with a lender who works with them regularly.
Not every lender does, which is a reason to ask the question directly rather than assume it came up.
The honest limit on controlling your mortgage rate
None of this makes a 6.95% market feel like a 3% one. Together these levers might move your mortgage rate by a fraction of a point and your payment by a manageable amount each month — real money over thirty years, but not a transformation. The bigger movements come from somewhere else, which is what the Fed does and does not actually control.
What they do change is that you stop waiting for something outside your control and start working on the part that isn’t. And if you want to understand why rates are where they are in the first place, it has more to do with the 10-year Treasury than the Fed.
Rate figures reflect Freddie Mac’s survey as of September 17, 2026 and change weekly; your own rate depends on credit, down payment, loan type, and lender. I’m a real estate agent, not a lender — confirm terms with a licensed loan officer.
Shea Merritt is a licensed New Jersey real estate agent with eXp Realty, working with buyers and sellers across Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean counties. He grew up in Old Bridge. He writes here about the arithmetic behind a move: what a house would actually bring today, what the tax line does to a monthly payment, and how to compare offers on their terms rather than on the top number. If you are weighing a sale or a purchase, send him the address and he will run the numbers on it.