Federal Housing Administration FHA
Fixed-rate mortgage
FICO
FICO score
Fannie Mae
Front-end ratio
Fixed rate
Front-end fee
FHFA
FHA loan
Escrow account
Foreclosure
Float
Funding fee
First lien
Freddie Mac
Equity
The Federal Housing Authority insures loans issued by lenders it approves, resulting in these loans. They are attractive to borrowers who may lack sufficient funds for a 20 percent down payment required for a conventional loan.These loans generally allow a 3.5 percent down payment, but require borrowers to meet specified requirements for eligibility. Most of these loans also require borrowers to pay a mortgage insurance premium.
This is a government agency that insures loans to encourage approved lenders to grant mortgage loans to borrowers who may have difficulty obtaining conventional loans.
Short for Fair Isaac Corp., this company created the most popular credit scoring system which are used by lenders and creditors to assess the creditworthiness of a borrower.
Lenders carry this out on a property when the borrower fails to make monthly payments, defaulting on the mortgage. The lender typically files for this and goes through the judicial process to sever the borrower's title to the property. However, the borrower may have agreed to give the lender the right to do this non-judicially, which allows the lender to seize the property without filing a claim in court.
The acronym for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is the federal agency responsible for setting up the Home Affordable Refinance Program . It oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
A borrower submits a loan application. Then, later, the borrower locks in the rate. This is what we call the time in betweenthe two moments. Interest rates fluctuate depending on the market, particularly certain indexes tied to the market. A borrower can let the rate float if he thinks the interest rate will go down further, at which point the borrower can lock in the rate for the borrower's mortgage loan.
This common term describes mortgages with interest rates fixed for the entirety of the loans' terms. A typical mortgage term of this type is 30 years.
Mortgage servicers set up and manage these accounts to handle payments for a borrower's homeowners insurance, property taxes and private mortgage insurance, if any. A portion of the borrower's monthly mortgage payment is deposited into the account. Mortgage lenders usually require these accounts, but may waive the requirement for a fee.
Interest rates on these loans are set at the start of the loan and do not change over time. Contrast this type of loan to an adjustable-rate loan.
This is the nickname for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. It owns or guarantees home loans in the United States. With its sibling Fannie Mae, it limits the maximum sized dollar amount of loans the agencies guarantee, called the conforming loan limit.
This debt-to-income ratio takes into consideration only the borrower's monthly mortgage payment — loan principal, interest, property taxes and homeowners insurance — as part of the debt factor. The debt factor does not include other monthly expenses, such as credit card, car loan payments or tuition. Many lenders calculate this ratio and the back-end ratio and use both as part of their assessment of a borrower's creditworthiness.
The amount of ownership a borrower actually has in his property. It is calculated by taking the market value of the property and subtracting the remaining mortgage loan balance.
Also known as FNMA or the Federal National Mortgage Association, this government-sponsored enterprise owns or guarantees an overwhelming proportion of home loans in the United States. Together with a parallel government-sponsored enterprise, Freddie Mac, they limit the maximum sized loan they guarantee, known as the conforming loan limit
Borrowers pay these fees to the lender at the start of the loan approval process. This term may also mean the borrower's payment to a mortgage broker.
That's the legal right of a creditor to seize and sell collateral and use the proceeds to pay off a borrower's loan balance. The creditor has a priority to use the proceeds before other creditors to satisfy the outstanding loan amount.
These credit score are widely used by lenders to gauge a borrower's creditworthiness. They take into account five weighted factors about a borrower's credit: payment history, credit utilization, credit history length, diversity of credit and new credit accounts. These scores range from 300 to 850 — a higher number indicates a better risk for lenders. There is no agreed-upon set of ranges for these credit scores.
Borrowers pay this required fee for VA loans, with a few exemptions. The fee is a percentage of the loan amount and varies, depending on the down payment amount, the veteran's service record and the use of a previous VA loan. This fee can be rolled into the loan amount or paid upfront at the closing.
