Q: I want to buy a house, but with rising mortgage rates, I'm afraid I won't be able to afford a loan that only a month ago seemed manageable. What are my options?

A: After several false warnings last year, consumers are finally seeing the end of extremely low mortgage rates.

If fixed 30-year rates climb to 6.75 percent by the end of the year, you will mostly likely see them reach 7.3 percent next year, which has been the average over the past decade, according to Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH Associates, a financial surveyor.

At least you have some options to lower your borrowing costs. You can pay for points upfront to buy down, or lock in, a mortgage rate. Or you can opt for adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, which carry a lower rate but at some risk.

Figuring out what to do comes down to how long you plan to stay in your home and how much financial risk you can take.

If you're thinking of staying only seven years, about the average time people spend in a home, getting a 30-year fixed rate may not be best. Seven-year and five-year adjustable rates have been about 1 percentage point below the 30-year rate over the past year.

If you get a loan for $200,000 at a 30-year fixed rate of 6 percent, you are paying a monthly mortgage of $1,199.10. By getting a seven-year adjustable mortgage at, let's say, 5 percent, you'd have a monthly payment of $1,073.64 and save $125.46 a month.

Of course, ARMs -- the most popular of which are the hybrid versions that have adjustable rates after a fixed rate for the first three to 10 years -- are a gamble.

In the first year after the fixed period, your rate could jump 2 percentage points with a three-year ARM, though there's usually no more than a 6 percentage point increase over the life of the loan.

For longer-term ARMs of five, seven or 10 years, the cap structure is different, and you could see a jump of up to 6 percentage points in the first adjustment, through there are limits over the course of the loan, Gumbinger said.

Even if rates keep climbing, buying down a 30-year fixed rate isn't necessarily the answer. Mortgage lenders usually charge 1 percent of the total value of the loan for every quarter point you cut.