Adjustable Rate Mortgage

Another common type of home loan is the adjustable rate mortgage or ARM. With this type of loan, the interest rate will fluctuate depending on the 6 different real estate
indexes.

The interest rate changes so the lender of the loan gets a proper margin. That’s due to the fact that the indexes influence the cost of funding that loan in the first place.

Basically, your lender lets you take on a little bit of the interest risk instead of just the lender like in a fixed rate loan. This type of loan can be great if the interest on your home loan consistently falls for a long time.

You don’t have to worry that much about the interest rates because even if they jump drastically, there are limits on how much your payments will increase.

These limits are called caps and mean that no matter the size of the interest jump, you won’t pay more than a certain increase in a certain time period.

As an example, let’s say a lender gives you an adjustable rate mortgage. It has a 1 percent cap for any 6 month time frame and a 4 percent total cap for the entire loan.

Your payments can increase as much as 4 percent at the maximum until the loan is paid off. That’s not too shabby if you consider when interest drastically drops, you save a
ton of money.