An interest rate is the percentage you’re charged to borrow money. The rate you’re charged for a home loan that takes 30 years to pay off is a 30-year mortgage rate.

Thirty-year mortgages usually have a fixed rate: your interest rate stays the same for as long as you have the loan.

Your home loan will have two main parts:

• The amount you borrowed to buy your home and you’re paying back. This is called the principal.
• The interest charged on the money you borrowed. Because it's fixed, your interest rate stays the same for as long as you have the loan.

In the beginning, most of your monthly payment goes toward paying interest. As your loan balance shrinks, more of your payment goes toward principal.

After 30 years of making regular monthly payments you’ll have paid off the entire loan and the house will be yours.

A mortgage rate lock keeps your interest rate from rising for a certain length of time.

You can consider locking your rate once you’ve found a home you want to buy and are ready to start getting your mortgage for it.

If the rate you’re getting gives you a monthly payment that fits your budget, and rates have been trending up, you might want to lock it. Your Home Loan Expert can help you understand if locking your rate makes sense for you.

The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. It controls the federal funds rate: the interest rate banks charge each other to borrow money. The Federal Reserve changes the federal funds rate to help the economy, and these changes can make mortgage rates go up or down.

Here are a couple of examples.

Changing the funds rate affects how much it costs banks to borrow money. If it's cheaper for banks to borrow, they can offer lower interest rates on loans, including mortgages. If it's more expensive for banks to borrow, they might charge higher interest rates on loans.

If investors think the Federal Reserve will lower rates, they might buy more bonds, which can push mortgage rates down. If they think the Fed will raise rates, they might sell bonds, which can push mortgage rates up.

One thing these two loans share is a fixed rate: that means your interest rate stays the same as long as you have the loan. Here are some of the differences:

• Size of monthly payment: Payments spread out over 30 years are lower than those spread out over 15 years.
• Interest rate: A 15-year loan is paid back in half the time as a 30-year. So interest rates are usually lower, since the lender gets their money back sooner.
• Interest paid: The longer the loan, the more interest you’ll pay, and vice versa.