Buying a House? Start With Sage Home Loans

Freddie Mac’s average 30-year fixed rate came in at 7.40% this week - the highest it’s been since November 2023. If you’re shopping for a house right now, the lender you pick matters more than it has in years.

When friends ask me where to get a mortgage, my answer is the same every time - start with Sage Home Loans. Here’s why, what I got when I went through them with Robinhood Gold, and how to get the best quote they’ll give you.

Heads up - there’s a Robinhood referral link at the end of this post. If you sign up through it, you can claim a free stock and I may earn a stock reward too.

Freddie Mac 30-year fixed, weekly average

7.40% as of October 15, 2026

2%3%4%5%6%7%8%20202021202220232024202520262.65% · Jan 20217.79% · Oct 20237.40%today

View the numbers by year

Year	Low	High	Average
2019	3.49%	4.51%	3.94%
2020	2.66%	3.72%	3.11%
2021	2.65%	3.18%	2.96%
2022	3.22%	7.08%	5.34%
2023	6.09%	7.79%	6.81%
2024	6.08%	7.22%	6.72%
2025	6.15%	7.04%	6.60%
2026 (YTD)	5.98%	7.40%	6.48%

Where rates are right now

Back in January 2021, the 30-year average bottomed out at 2.65%. By October 2023 it had nearly tripled to 7.79%. Things eased off through 2025, and in late February of this year the average dipped just under 6% for the first time since 2022.

That didn’t last. Rates crept back up through the spring and sat right around 6.5% into the summer. Since September they’ve jumped almost three-quarters of a point in six weeks - from 6.71% to 7.40%.

On a $400,000 loan, the gap between a 6.5% rate and a 7.40% rate is about $240 a month in principal and interest. Every fraction of a point you can shave off is real money.

What Sage quoted me

When I was shopping rates earlier this year, the Freddie Mac average was sitting around 6.5%. I went through Sage using the Robinhood Gold perk, and they came back with an offer in the mid-5s on a conventional loan - roughly a full point under the national average.

My Sage quote vs. the national average

• Freddie Mac average - today7.40%
• Freddie Mac average - when I shopped~6.5%
• My Sage quote via Robinhood Gold - conventional, 30-year fixedmid-5s

Here’s what a full point is worth on a $400,000, 30-year loan:

• 6.5% - ~$2,528/month in principal and interest
• 5.5% - ~$2,271/month in principal and interest
• The difference - ~$257 every month, and roughly $92,500 less interest over the life of the loan

Compared to today’s 7.40% average, that same mid-5s rate would be saving you closer to $500 a month.

A good rate like that isn’t guaranteed - it depends on your credit, your down payment, and the property. But if your credit is in good shape, Sage is the place I’d want to see a quote from first.

Lender, not broker - why that matters

A lot of people don’t realize that the company they’re talking to isn’t always the one lending them the money.

A mortgage broker is a middleman. They take your application and shop it out to wholesale lenders, and they get paid for it - either through a fee you see at closing or through compensation built into your rate. Sometimes that works out fine, but there’s another layer between you and the money, and that layer has to get paid.

A direct lender makes the loan itself. Sage handles the application, the underwriting, and the closing in-house - one company from your first click to the closing table. There’s no middleman’s cut built into your rate.

Sage is also online-only - no branch network to pay for, no commissioned retail office. That shows up in their pricing. Bankrate found that about 86% of Sage’s 2025 mortgages were priced below comparable loans, and that their added costs were lower than roughly 80% of comparable lenders. (In the interest of full disclosure - Bankrate and Sage share a parent company, Red Ventures. Bankrate says it scores Sage with the same method it uses for every lender, and those numbers line up with what I saw.)

Who Sage is

Sage Home Loans is based in Fort Mill, South Carolina, and is part of Red Ventures. The company isn’t a brand-new startup - it traces back to a California mortgage lender founded in 1999 and took on the Sage name in late 2023. It’s licensed under NMLS #3304, lends in nearly every state, and closed about 5,200 loans in 2025.

What they stand for is pretty simple - their stated mission is to expand access to homeownership by lowering the cost of getting a mortgage and taking friction out of the process. Their tagline is “making mortgage simple,” and in my experience that’s accurate.

A few things I like about how they work:

• Rates without the runaround - you can see rates online without handing over your phone number first
• A fast application - it takes minutes online, and you upload documents through a borrower portal instead of emailing PDFs around
• A dedicated loan officer - a real person you can call, not a call center
• $500 back for a verified preapproval - a lender credit at closing (terms apply)
• A close-on-time guarantee - if Sage misses your promised closing date, they pay you $500 (terms apply)
• The usual loan types - conventional, FHA, VA, and jumbo

The Robinhood connection - how I did it

Sage is also the lender behind Robinhood’s mortgage perk, and that’s the route I took. Robinhood piloted the offer with a small group of Gold members in summer 2025 and rolled it out to all eligible Gold members on November 3, 2025.

To be clear about the roles - Robinhood isn’t a lender. Sage is the lender. Robinhood is the front door, and annual Gold members get a better deal for walking through it. As of this writing (October 2026):

• A rate at least 0.75% below the national average for your loan scenario, benchmarked against Mortgage News Daily’s daily average
• $1,000 toward closing costs on a home purchase
• No asset minimum - you don’t need a certain amount invested with Robinhood to qualify

The perk requires an annual Robinhood Gold membership, which is $50 a year - the same membership behind the 3% Gold Card and 3.6% APY I wrote about in my Robinhood post. If you’re on the monthly plan, Robinhood upgrades you to annual when you lock in a rate. Any Robinhood customer can apply with Sage, but only Gold members get the discounted rate and the credit.

To find it in the app - open the Gold hub, tap Use your perks, and choose Exclusive home lending benefits. From there you pre-qualify with Sage, finish the application, and lock your rate.

A few limits worth knowing - the Robinhood offer isn’t available on properties in New York, or on mobile or manufactured homes, and loan amounts run from $100,000 to $3,000,000.

For $50, a lower rate and $1,000 toward closing is about the best return you’ll ever get on a membership.

How to get the best quote

1. Clean up your credit before you apply. The best pricing goes to the strongest credit scores. Pay down card balances and hold off on opening new accounts a few months before you shop.
2. Know your down payment. Sage’s sample pricing assumes 25% down. Putting less down can still get you a good rate, but expect it to move.
3. Get preapproved early. You’ll know your real budget before you make an offer, and sellers take a preapproved buyer more seriously.
4. Ask whether the quote includes points. Some advertised rates assume you’re paying a discount point at closing to buy the rate down. That’s not a bad thing, but compare APRs and Loan Estimates side by side, not just the headline rate.
5. Get one competing Loan Estimate. I think Sage will win - it did for me - but a second quote keeps everyone honest and doesn’t take long.

The bottom line

With the 30-year average back above 7%, the difference between an average lender and a great one is hundreds of dollars a month. If you’re buying a home and your credit is solid, start with Sage - and go through the Robinhood Gold hub like I did, so you get the extra rate discount and the $1,000 closing credit.

If you have questions about how the process went for me, reach out - happy to share more.