Today's Mortgage Terms starting with A

Accrued Interest:

Interest earned but has not been paid

Additional Principal Payment:

A payment made by the borrower of more than the scheduled principal amount due with the purpose of reducing the remaining balance on the loan.

Adjustable Rate Mortgage:

Loans with interest rates that are adjusted periodically based on changes of a pre-determined index. The index is based on market rates such as Treasury bills and prime rates. The ARM has an interest rate cap that limits the amount the interest rate can change.

Adjustment Period:

Applicable to an ARM, the time between changes in the interest rate.

Amortization:

Repayment of a debt with periodic payments, usually monthly, of principal and interest calculated to pay down the loan within a predetermined time.

Amortization Schedule:

A timetable for payment of a mortgage detailing the amount of each payment applied to interest and principal and the balance left outstanding.

Annual Percentage Rate (APR):

The cost of credit shown as a yearly rate. The annual percentage rate is usually not the same as the interest rate. The APR will be higher than the interest rate stated in the note due to the fact that it includes the interest rate, loan discount points, fees and mortgage insurance.

Appraisal Fee:

A fee charged by a licensed, certified appraiser for a written estimate of a property's current market value at a specific time.

Assumable Mortgage:

A mortgage that can be taken over by the buyer when a home is sold by the previous owner.

View all Terms

Douglas mortgage rates news:

Mortgage applications up 112.1% last week, due to drop in rates: MBA - Marketwatch
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Mortgage applications filed last week rose a seasonally adjusted 112.1%, compared with the week before, as borrowers rushed to lock in lower rates, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's weekly survey, released on ...

Guest Commentary: Douglas Rauthe - Flathead Beacon
Recently, television commentators, pundits and bloggers have started to blame low-income homebuyers for the problems the mortgage and financial markets face today. These same folks are suggesting that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) also played ...

Rates slash brings cheer to business - Hawke's Bay Today
The Official Cash Rate (OCR) dropped by 1.5 per cent this morning spelling a break for Hawke's Bay exporters and hopefully injecting some confidence back into our building, tourism and real estate markets. The Reserve Bank pushed official interest ...

Rates cut again as recession deepens - Times Online
The economy is plunging deeper into recession despite emergency tax cuts and the multibillion-pound bank bailout, the Bank of England said yesterday. Cutting the base rate to its lowest level in more than 50 years, the Bank said the outlook now was ...

Forget the subprime mortgage mess — Collin Peterson in Europe trying ... - DL-Online
U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., left for Europe this weekend to discuss ways to regulate little-known and difficult-to-understand “credit default swaps.” “It has to be global,” Peterson said, so he and other House Agriculture Committee ...

Savings on typical house? Two bucks - Omaha World-Herald
Most homeowners in Douglas and Sarpy Counties are getting a property tax cut. That's welcome news in these tough economic times, but few taxpayers will see much of a windfall. When the new tax bills go out in the first two weeks of December, the ...

NYC Apartment Rents Fell in November, Vacancies Rose (Update2) - Bloomberg
Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Manhattan apartment rents fell for a fourth consecutive month in November and vacancy rates reached 2 percent for the first time in almost two years as Wall Street’s financial turmoil took a toll on the housing market. Rents ...

Commodity stocks lead retreat in grim US trading - Financial Times
A wave of selling in the last hour of trading pushed Wall Street stocks sharply lower on Thursday as traders braced themselves for a bleak reading of closely watched employment data. Job cuts from a range of companies – often welcomed by investors ...

When Fed rate hits zero, what's next? - Marketplace.publicradio.org
Kai Ryssdal: So here's a nifty macro-economic problem with some real-world applications. What do you do if you're running an economy and you run out of room? Room on interest rates, in this case. One of the textbook solutions to get things going ...

Foreclosure: Nevadans hit hard in national crisis - Reno Gazette
Shelly Griese hates to move. But in the last four months, the 47-year-old Reno resident found herself doing exactly that. Twice. Packing boxes on a clear November afternoon, a tired and dejected Griese expressed disbelief on how quickly her life has ...