The word mortgage comes from joining two words, the French word "mort," which means "dead," and "gage," from the Old English word for "pledge". The word was used to describe the uncertainty of credit worthiness of a mortgagor. In case the mortgagor did not pay, the land pledged as security for the debt was taken away and considered 'dead'. Nowadays, the term mortgage is commonly used to refer to a loan for the purpose of purchasing a property.

Home mortgages are the most widespread kind of mortgage. Unlike most loans, your home mortgage will be renegotiated prior to you making the complete pay it off. Actually, you have a 'life' of the home mortgage and a 'term' for the interest rate. The life of the home mortgage is generally 20, 25 or 30 years. This denotes the time period in which your home will be paid off.

The term for the interest rate that you pay on your home mortgage is the length of time over which you will have an agreed payment schedule with certain additional conditions. This is the time period over which you've agreed to pay at a specific rate of home mortgage interest; not exceed limits for extra payments, usually a certain percentage of the original home mortgage that you can put down each year; not to exceed limits on your capacity to re-negotiate the home mortgage interest rate, which is influenced by whether the mortgage is "open" or "closed", and to accept penalties if you would like to renegotiate the terms of the home mortgage prior to the particular time period of the contract is concluded.

This contractual agreement is, on average, 6 months to 10 years. Keep in mind that several financial institutions will only consult terms for a home mortgage for 5 years or less.