Home Loan Basics

When you go to apply for a home loan, you need to understand the terminology. Let's start with the most basic of terms.

1. Principal   The principal is simply the amount you borrow to move into the home of your desires. If you apply for a loan of $250,000, the amount the bank actually gives you is the principal amount.

2. Interest   Every home loan comes with an interest rate. The interest rate is the amount a lender is charging you to borrow the principal. Interest rates are typically the key to a loan as there are a wide variety of loans that have flexible interest rates that change every year, ever few years or simply remain set over time. In general, you want to minimize the interest rate as much as possible.

3. Term   The term of the loan is simply the number of months you have to repay the money you've borrowed from the lender. For instance, a 30-year fixed rate mortgage is indicative of a term of 360 monthly payments to be made over 30 years. Don't worry, there are loans of much shorter periods of time.