Housing Expense Ratio

The option to convert an ARM to an FRM at some point during its life. ...

Rolling short-term debt into a home mortgage loan, either at the time of home purchase or later. The Case for Consolidation: Borrowers consolidate in order to reduce their finance costs. ...

Fees assessed by lenders when payments are late. Late fees are usually 4% or 5% of the payment. A borrower with a 6% mortgage for 30 years who pays a 5% late charge every month raises his ...

Cost-of-Funds Index, one of many interest rate indexes used to determine interest rate adjustments on an adjustable rate mortgage. ...

Loan applications that are withdrawn by borrowers, because they have found a better deal or for other reasons. ...

The period used to calculate the monthly mortgage payment. The term is usually but not always the same as the maturity, which is the period over which the loan balance must be paid in ...

A lender commitment to make a mortgage loan to a specified borrower, prior to the identification of the property that will be mortgaged. On a pre-approval, unlike a pre-qualification, the ...

Trying to find the best deal on a mortgage. It isn't easy to do right, as a summary of the major steps involved will demonstrate. Step 1: Decide if you are a potential shopper. Step 2: ...

A charge imposed by the lender if the borrower pays off the loan early. The charge is usually expressed as a percent of the loan balance at the time of prepayment or a specified number of ...