Basics
Notes
Banker’s Rounding
All dollar amounts are rounded using Banker’s rounding to limit bias toward/away from 0 when rounding from float values.
Return Float Amounts
Floating point numbers are returned to the highest precision possible, as strings. This is to limit the potential for floating point errors.
Payment Dates
The Mortek API does not handle specific dates, as there are many factors that determine a payment date, depending on locality (such as bank or national holidays)
Payment Amounts
The Mortek API does not include additional amounts, such as property taxes, in mortgages or payments.
Glossary
General Mortgage Terms
| Term | Definition | Related API Data Fields |
|---|---|---|
| Annum/per annum | Financial term for one year | |
| Amortization months | The full length of the amortizing loan (mortgage), in months | |
| Amortizing loan | A loan paid back over time using a set amortization schedule. Wikipedia | |
| Compounding | Interest accumulates on both the principal and accrued interest according to a compounding schedule. Wikipedia | |
| Payment frequency | How often a regular payment is made towards the mortgage | |
| Payment period | An individual payment date on a mortgage. Note: The Mortek API does not handle specific dates, as there are many factors that determine a payment date, depending on locality (such as bank or national holidays) | |
| Regular payment | The regular periodic payment (according to the loan’s payment frequency) amount, including both the interest and principal portion. Note: The Mortek API does not include additional amounts, such as property taxes, in mortgages or payments. | |
| Term | The period of time a financing commitment covers, separate from the overall period of time it will take to pay off an amortizing loan. For example, some common terms are 1 yr, 3 yr, 5yr, 10yr. The interest rate type (fixed or variable) is set for the length of the term. |
Rate Terms
| Term | Definition | Related API Data Fields |
|---|---|---|
| Effective Rate | The annual interest rate of the loan after compound interest is applied. | |
| Fixed Rate | A mortgage with an interest that doesn’t change for the term of the mortgage. | |
| Nominal Rate | The annual interest rate for a mortgage before compound interest is applied. | |
| Periodic Rate | The interest rate for a single payment period that is equal to the effective annual interest rate after being multiplied by the number of payment periods per year. It is used to calculate the interest portion of a regular mortgage payment. | |
| Rate Type | The type of interest calculation for a mortgage agreement. Can be fixed, variable (VRM), or adjustable (ARM) | |
| Variable Rate | A variable rate mortgage has an interest rate which changes periodically. | |
| Variable Rate - Adjustable | An adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) is a type of variable rate mortgage which has a regular principal and interest payment amount that changes every time the interest rate changes. | |
| Variable Rate - Variable | A variable rate mortgage (VRM) is a type of variable mortgage in which the regular principal and interest payment amount doesn’t change when the interest rate changes. |