Mortgage Rates/Mortgage Rate Terms: Knowing About Both
Thursday, October 13th, 2011Searching for the best current mortgage rates and knowing what you’re doing is the key to success when getting a mortgage to buy a home or refinance a mortgage. The interest that is not paid in the monthly payment is added to the loan balance.These fees may make it too expensive to get out of the loan.Prepayment penalty Extra fees that may be due if you pay off the loan early by refinancing your home, if you already have searched for refinanced rates you’ll find refinance rates today are so low.
Most banks requires your mortgage lender to give you a good faith estimate of all your closing costs within 3 business days of submitting your application for a loan, whether you are purchasing or refinancing a home, make sure to use a mortgage calculator to figure out the payments. By law, virtually all ARMs must have an overall cap.
The rate changes during the life of the loan in line with movements in an index rate, such as the rate for Treasury securities or the Cost of Funds Index.Therefore getting a list of bankmortgagerates to decide on which lender to choose is best. The actual expenses at closing may be somewhat different from the good faith estimate.
Index The index is the measure of interest-rate changes that the lender uses to decide how much the interest rate on an ARM will change over time.Interest The price paid for borrowing money, usually given in percentages and as an annual rate.A
mortizing loan Monthly payments are large enough to pay the interest and reduce the principal on your mortgage.Payment caps do not limit the amount of interest the lender is earning, so they may lead to negative amortization.
This means that even after making many payments, you could owe more than you did at the beginning of the loan.No one can be sure when an index rate will go up or down.Adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) A mortgage that does not have a fixed interest rate.
Interest caps come in two versions: periodic caps, which limit the interest-rate increase from one adjustment period to the next, and overall caps, which limit the interest-rate increase over the life of the loan.
Cap, payment A limit on how much the monthly payment may change, either each time the payment changes or during the life of the mortgage.Ask the lender if you can get a loan without a prepayment penalty, and what that loan would cost.You should ask your lender how the index for any ARM you are considering has changed in recent years, and where the index is reported.
The number of percentage points the lender adds to the index rate to calculate the ARM interest rate at each adjustment.Equity The difference between the fair market value of the home and the outstanding mortgage balance.If your loan includes a prepayment penalty, be aware of the penalty you would have to pay.
Negative amortization Occurs when the monthly payments do not cover all the interest owed.Some index rates tend to be higher than others, and some change more often.Cap, interest rate A limit on the amount your interest rate can increase.