As mortgage costs rise, some home builders are buying down rates themselves (Crains Detroit Business)

With high interest rates spooking some home buyers and sending home builders into what can sometimes feel like premature retirement due to falling demand, builders are starting to take the matter into their own hands.

If high interest rates, are the problem, there's an easy solution: just bring them down.

Rate buydown programs and other interest rate specials are proliferating in the new-construction market, with builders making concessions to their bottom line to ensure that potential buyers aren't scared away by recent spikes in mortgage rates. They're offering programs to lock in interest rates, spending millions of dollars to buy guaranteed rates or simply offering a couple of years of discounted interest rates with the hope that buyers will be able to refinance at a better number before too long.

"Marry the home and date the rate," the saying goes, said Bob Powley, the vice president of operations for M/I Homes Detroit, whose corporate parent recently sold out of a 5.875 percent interest rate it paid for up front, in order to guarantee the rate for potential buyers.

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