A home loan is usually obtained from a bank but can be received from any institution willing to loan the money. Lenders normally require an initial payment from the borrower, typically 20 percent of the purchase price of the house; this is called a down payment. If the house is selling for $200,000, for example, the borrower must make a down payment of $40,000 and can then take out a $160,000 loan to cover the rest. Lenders require a down payment as a way to ensure that they can recover the money they have loaned in case the borrower defaults on it (that is, fails to repay it). In the case of default, the lender has the right to repossess the property and sell it to pay off the loan. The process of a lender taking possession of a property as a result of a defaulted loan is called foreclosure.

Lenders evaluate potential borrowers to make sure they are reliable enough to pay back the loan. Among the factors they review are the borrower's income and ability to make the down payment. The U.S. government provides various forms of assistance to people who would not normally qualify for home loans. For instance, the Federal Housing Administration insures loans for low-income citizens in order to encourage banks to lend to them. It also runs programs that offer grants (money that does not have to be repaid) to cover down payments. One such program is the American Dream Down Payment Initiative. The Department of Veterans Affairs provides similar assistance for people who have served in the U.S. military.

The calculation banks use to determine monthly loan payments is complicated and often not understood by borrowers. Banks charge an annual percentage rate (APR) on the loan amount, or principal, in order to be compensated for the service of lending money (as well as to pay for their own expenses, such as hiring employees and maintaining buildings). Although the interest rate is quoted as an annual rate, in actuality the interest on a home loan is usually charged monthly. For example, if the APR were 8 percent, the monthly interest rate would be 0.6667 percent (8 percent divided by 12 months). The interest also compounds monthly, meaning that each month the interest fee is added to the original loan amount, and this sum is used as the basis for the next month's interest. The borrower ends up paying interest on the accumulated interest as well as on the original loan amount.

To understand how this works, imagine that you had to pay an 8 percent annual fee on $100. The first month you would pay an interest fee of roughly 0.6667 percent of $100, or a little more than 66 cents, raising the total amount due to just over $100.66. The second month you would pay 0.6667 percent on the new loan amount ($100.66), or 67 cents, bringing the total due to almost $101.34. After 12 months of applying a compounding monthly interest rate of 0.6667, the total amount owed would be $108.30, or 8 percent more than the original loan amount plus 30 cents, the amount of interest that accumulated through compounding.

Mortgage payments are even more complicated because two things happen each month: in the example of an 8 percent APR, a fee of 0.6667 percent is charged to the total amount of the loan, but the total amount of the loan is reduced because the borrower has made a payment. Because the payment by the borrower is more than the fee of the monthly interest rate, the total amount owed gradually goes down.

This method of calculation requires that borrowers pay more in interest each month at the beginning of the loan than at the end. This can be seen in the example of a $160,000 loan paid over a 30-year period with an APR of 8 percent. After the first month of the loan, the bank charges a monthly interest rate of 0.6667 percent (really two-thirds of a percent, which would be a 0 with an infinite number of 6s after the decimal point, but it is rounded up at the fourth decimal point) on the $160,000 loan amount, for a fee of $1,066.67. At the same time, the borrower sends the bank a mortgage payment of $1,174.02; of this amount, $1,066.67 goes toward paying off the interest charge, and the remainder, $107.35, is subtracted from the $160,000 loan, bring the total amount due down to $159,892.65. The next month the bank charges the same monthly interest rate of 0.6667 on this new amount, $159,892.65, resulting in an interest charge of $1,065.95, just slightly less than the month before. When the borrower sends in his $1,174.02 payment, $1,065.95 goes toward paying off the new interest charge and the rest, $108.07, is subtracted from the loan amount ($159,892.65  $108.07), with the resulting total amount due being $159,784.58.

Over the course of 30 years, three things happen: the total amount due on the loan gradually goes down; the interest charge also slowly reduces (because it is a fixed percent, 0.6667, of a gradually reducing loan amount); and an increasing amount of the payment begins to go to the loan amount, not the interest (because the interest charge gradually goes down while the borrower's payment, $1,174.02, remains the same). After 270 months, or three-fourths of the way through the loan, $532.72 of the monthly payment goes toward interest and $641.30 is subtracted from the loan amount. By the end of the loan, the borrower would have paid $160,000 in principal and $262,652.18 in interest.

Purchasing a home involves paying what are called "closing costs" to cover the various transactions that must occur. Fees are charged by the broker or agent who arranges the home loan, the people who inspect the property to make sure it is sound, the title insurance company (which researches the legal ownership of the property to make sure the seller is really the owner and insures that the transfer of ownership goes smoothly). Additionally, there are various local and state taxes and fees to be paid, and there may be a partial payment due at the time of the mortgage's inception. These charges are usually paid by the buyer at the very end of the lending process (hence the term closing costs ).

In order to protect themselves and the home buyer from financial loss, lenders require that the property be covered by a homeowner's insurance policy that insures the property against loss from fire (and in certain cases flood or earthquake) damage. To guarantee that the borrower makes his or her insurance payments, mortgage lenders set up what is called an escrow account and require that the borrower deposit a monthly payment into it to cover the cost of the insurance. When the annual insurance bill comes due, the mortgage company uses the money in the escrow account to pay it on behalf of the borrower.

Additionally, most real estate is subject to property tax, which is used to fund public schools and other local government programs. Because a failure to pay these taxes can lead to the seizure and sale of the property, the lender wants to make sure that these taxes are paid and hence requires the buyer to pay another monthly amount into the escrow account.

Despite the large amount of interest paid, there are many benefits to having a home loan. They allow people to buy homes that they would otherwise be unable to afford. In addition, once someone has a fixed-rate mortgage, the monthly payment never goes up. Rents, however, almost always rise over time. A homeowner also builds up equity in the house over the years. Equity is the difference between the current value of the property and the loans against it. In the above example of the $200,000 house, the owner immediately has $40,000 in equity because of the down payment; as the owner gradually pays back the loan, his or her equity increases. Furthermore, it is likely that 10 years later the house itself will have increased in value. If the house is, for example, worth $260,000 by then, the owner will have gained an additional $60,000 in equity. An owner can turn the equity in a house into cash by selling the house and pocketing the profits, possibly with the intention of buying another house, taking a long vacation, or having extra money for retirement. Finally, interest is usually deducted from a person's taxable income, meaning that person will owe less in taxes.

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