Mortgage is a fancy word for loan. When you buy a house you get a special kind of loan called a mortgage. Essentially whatever company or bank you get your mortgage from owns your house and you are slowly paying it off. As you pay off the mortgage you earn equity. This is the actual value YOU have in the house. Many times you can borrow money from your equity for other things - but you have to pay it back and it is like extending your mortgage - but not really. There are different kinds of mortgages, you can get one that have fixed interest rates or one that fluctuates. The length of a mortgage is usually 30 years, but you can make them shorter if you can afford the higher monthly payments. The shorter the term length, the less you pay in the long run- but you have to pay more each month. It's the interest that kills you.
I hope that helped.
You can also try any bank websites, they usually have lots of information posted about mortgages.
|