How Mortgage Interest Works – Beginner’s Guide


Although having a mortgage in today’s world is necessary, not many people know how mortgage interest works. The term mortgage isn’t dubbed a death pledge for no reason. The reason being it can sometimes feel like a never-ending debt that you pay for. So, how does mortgage interest work?

The interest rate on a mortgage may be set when the loan is obtained and kept there for the whole term of the mortgage. Another option is to set the interest rate to fluctuate in accordance with some benchmark. Mortgage interest is often paid monthly and is a significant amount at first.

Many people that look to purchase a house often have to take out a mortgage loan. When you’re ready for a mortgage, it is important knowing how the interest works before committing. However, very few understand how the interest works. Here is what you need to know about how mortgage interest works.

How Does Mortgage Interest Work?

Once you know the basics, it’s pretty easy to know how mortgage interest works. Often mathematics can feel like rocket science. However, the maths when it comes to mortgage interest is pretty basic. The payment of interest on a loan balance is known as interest. This is charged regularly, whether daily, monthly, or annually, and is frequently calculated as a yearly percentage rate.

Mortgage interest rates may be fixed at the time the loan is taken and maintained there for the duration of the mortgage. Alternately, the interest rate could fluctuate according to some standard, like the prime rate, which is often the case in the US.

If your interest rate is set, the bank will determine a predetermined payment amount for you each month that includes all the interest. The payment is made so that it fully repays the debt after the loan term, which might be 15 or 30 years, for example.

The principle, also known as the remaining balance of the loan, and the interest due upon this principle for that particular period make up most of each fixed-interest mortgage payment. Because interest-only payments make up the majority of the first 10 years of a 15 or 30-year mortgage, the sum owing hasn’t decreased significantly after ten years.

How mortgage interest rates work

But as the outstanding balance upon which the interest is billed diminishes later in the payoff term, the payments made will become more and more principal and less and less interest. This is why paying down more than the minimum amount required each month is helpful, particularly early in the mortgage, as it will significantly lower the overall interest payments.

Interest is considered to be the cost charged for borrowing money. It is important to remember that interest rates can be fixed or adjustable. When you have a fixed mortgage loan, it means that your interest rate will never change. It means that you never have to worry about it changing, going up or down, as it will remain consistent during the duration of your mortgage loan.

However, an adjustable-rate mortgage will fluctuate depending on the loan’s terms and setup. For example, sometimes, an adjustable rate mortgage will be fixed for the first 5 years but will then fluctuate and change every year. This is why most people tend to prefer a fixed loan, as adjustable-rate mortgage loans can become dangerous.

What Determines What Your Mortgage Interest Will Be?

Several factors determine what the rate of your interest rate will be. Three main primary things determine interest rates. These are the lender, the market, and your risk profile.

Basically, your risk profile has to do with your credit score; the higher your credit score is, the better the rate will be for your mortgage loan. When it comes to the market, the economic health of the place you reside in will determine the mortgage interest rate.

Here Is An Example Of How Mortgage Interest Works When Fixed

Once a person makes a payment, they often notice that only a small portion goes to the principal amount. In contrast, the portion that is paid to the interest is higher. Let’s say the purchase price is $100,000, and if a 20% down payment is put on the property, that would mean that the principal amount you’d be starting with would be $80,000.

If the interest rate is set at 5%, and this is a fixed mortgage for 30 years, your monthly principal and interest will be $429.46. To calculate the interest in the terms mentioned above, the loan balance after the first down payment would be imperative in determining the interest. And in this case, the principal interest is $80,000, as mentioned.

Therefore, to calculate how much mortgage interest you have on your mortgage loan, it would be the loan balance which is the principal amount, multiplied by the interest rate, which is 5%. Then the balance of that would be divided by 12, which would be the number of months in a year. In this case, the interest amount would be $333.33.

This would be for that first month. As you can see, interest is a huge portion of what you pay back, and only a small portion goes to the payment of the principal amount. That would mean that only 96.13 dollars goes to the principal amount, and your principal amount will only decrease by $96.13. Therefore, the new principal amount will be $79,903.87 instead of $80,000.

That would mean that in the second month, the interest would be multiplied by $79,903.89. The balance will then be divided by 12, like the first month. The interest will now be less than it was in the first month. This process is repeated month after month for the next 30 years.

Interestingly the interest that you pay decreases year after year. Simply put, the portion of the monthly payment that goes to the interest decreases while the portion that goes to the principal amount increases over the years. However, the monthly principal and interest amounts will never change because this is a fixed mortgage loan.

The first monthly payment will be the highest mortgage interest you pay, which will change and decrease each month. The interest on your mortgage starts becoming less and less because there is a smaller amount of principal to charge interest on.

How Mortgage Interest Works When The Rate Is Variable

Mortage rates

We’ll start with the lender’s Prime rate for a variable rate. A variable rate is generally the prime plus or minus a certain amount. It’s important to also remember that a lender will offer you either a premium or a discount rate on the prime rate. For example, a lender may offer you a discount rate of 0.45%.

If the current prime rate is 3%, the effective variable rate will be 2.55%. If the prime rate were to increase to 4%, your effective interest rate would be 3.55%. This is because the prime can change based on the Bank of Canada’s overnight lending rate.

Now that you understand how the prime rate can be affected by a discount or a premium rate, here is an example to further illustrate how a variable rate differs from a fixed rate. If a person has purchased a home for $300,000 and put down a 5% down payment, they have a principal amount of $285000.

If the variable rate is 2.55%, as mentioned above, and the mortgage is for five years, then the monthly mortgage payments will be $1319. If you take the same example and compare it to a fixed monthly mortgage payment with a fixed rate of 2.93% for five years with the same principal amount, you would have to pay $1375.

This may make it seem like the variable mortgage payments are less than a fixed rate. However, keep in mind that the variable rate fluctuates throughout the mortgage loan term. So, if the prime rate increases to 4% two years into your term instead of remaining at 3%, your monthly mortgage payment with a variable rate will change.

This means that the effective interest rate will change from 2.55% to 3.55%, as explained above. Therefore the monthly mortgage payments will now increase to $1470. Therefore, in this case, the interest will be the principal amount multiplied by the variable interest rate divided over 12 months.

This means that the interest getting paid off by the monthly mortgage payment is $605.62. The rest of the monthly mortgage payment will be going to the principal amount. However, after those first two years, once the variable rate changes, so will the interest getting paid.

Do You Pay More Interest The Longer The Term Is?   

The interest you pay on a mortgage loan will vary depending on the mortgage’s term. For example, compared to a 15-year mortgage loan, a 30-year mortgage loan will most likely have more interest to be paid over those 30 years. In contrast, a 15-year mortgage loan will have less interest that you will have to pay over the years.

Is A Fixed Or Variable Mortgage Rate Better?

As interest rates are on the rise lately, many people wonder whether a fixed or variable mortgage fixed rate is better. Choosing the correct mortgage rate will go a long way and help you decide which is better for you when it comes to the interest you will have to pay for the duration of the mortgage.

Banks can establish their own mortgage loan interest rates per the RBI’s monetary policies. However, it’s crucial to realize that there are two different interest rates: fixed and variable. The rate of interest that commercial banks are permitted to charge their clients is the repo rate, which is among the most significant features of the contemporary economy.

The Repo rate and the variable interest rates are directly related. When people apply for a loan with a fixed interest rate, the interest rate does not fluctuate over the loan’s term, not even in response to changes in the financial market.

When the market goes down, borrowers who choose a fixed interest rate benefit from a low rate. Some may experience a lower rate when the market increases while yours stays the same. A variable interest rate is not fixed, which changes over time following market trends and variations.

This variable rate is determined by looking at what other lenders and banks are currently providing as a benchmark. Similarly to the interest rate, the benchmark rate fluctuates throughout the loan.

Is An Interest Only Mortgage Better?

Discussing Mortgage Rates

An interest-only loan has the obvious drawback that no principal is paid with each payment; the debt remains unchanged. While some may argue that this form of loan prevents you from accumulating equity, most borrowers get most of their equity via appreciation rather than through the principal amount of their mortgage payments.

The payment for a 30-year mortgage on a $300,000 loan at 3% is $1,264.81. $514.81 goes toward the principal, and $750 is used to pay the interest. The borrower will have reduced the outstanding sum to $293,736 after one year.

If they paid $315,700 for the house, suppose a 5% down payment, and it appreciates by 3% over the course of a year, they will have made almost $9,500 in equity. Although appreciation is never assured, history suggests that the possibility of it is very strong.

The biggest drawback of an interest-only mortgage is that, eventually, the borrower must begin making principal payments. When the loan enters the amortized phase after a 10-year interest-only span, the borrower will normally pay the remaining balance over 20 years.

The $300,000 loan’s initial monthly payment of $750 turns into a monthly payment of $1,660. The modest beginning installments may persuade borrowers, but they should still be mindful of how the loan functions over the long run. Although they are uncommon nowadays, interest-only mortgages do exist.

Conclusion

As can be seen, mortgage interest can either be fixed or fluctuate according to the prime rate. A significant amount of the monthly payment goes towards the interest, while a small amount goes to the balance itself. However, interest payments also decrease as the principal amount decreases.

Recent Posts