Mortgage Glossary
- S&L
- Savings and Loan Association.
- Safe Harbor
- A set of rules and regulations that will guarantee compliance with the law, if followed.
- Safe Rate
- An interest rate provided by low-risk investments such as high grade bonds or secured first mortgages.
- Sale-leaseback
- A technique in which a seller deeds property to a buyer, who simultaneously leases the property back to the seller.
- Sales Contract
- Sales Disclosure
- A state specific form that may need to be filed, disclosing everything about the sale of the home.
- Salesperson
- A person who is licensed to make real estate transactions while under the supervision of a broker licensed by the state.
- Search and Exam Fee
- Search and Survey
- Search Fee
- Second Mortgage
- A loan that has a lien position subordinate to the first mortgage.
- Secondary Mortgage Market
- The buying and selling of existing mortgages, primarily residential first mortgages.
- Secured Loan
- A loan that is backed by collateral.
- Security
- Security Interest
- The lender's right to take property that has been offered as security.
- Seller take-Back
- An arrangement in which the owner of a property provides financing.
- Servicer
- A company that collects principal and interest payments from borrowers and manages borrowers' escrow accounts. The servicer may or may not be the original lender.
- Settlement
- A meeting of parties involved in a real estate transaction to finalize the process. In the case of a purchase, the settlement usually involves the seller, the buyer, the real estate broker and the lender. In the case of a refinance, the settlement involves the borrower and the lender. Sometimes referred to as the closing or the close of escrow.
- Settlement or Closing Fee
- A fee charged by a title company, closing agent or attorney to act as a representative and agent for the lender to perform the closing of a real estate transaction.
- Settlement Statement
- Also referred to as the HUD-1 or the closing statement, this is the document that provides line by line detail of the financial details related to a specific real estate transaction such as the fees paid by the seller and the buyer for a purchase transaction or the fees paid by the borrower for refinances.
- Simple Interest
- An amount earned on an account holder's principal, according to a specified rate. This does not include any compounding interest.
- Standard Payment Calculation
- The process used to determine the monthly payment required to repay the remaining principal balance of a loan in fairly equal installments, over the remaining term of the loan at the current interest rate.
- State Tax Stamps
- State/Local Tax Fees
- Stated/Documented Income
- "Some loan products require only that applicants "state" the source of their income without providing supporting documentation such as tax returns."
- Step Mortgage
- A type of adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) that allows for the interest rate to increase according to a specified schedule. At the end of the specified period, the rate and payments will remain constant for the remainder of the loan. Sometimes called a step-rate mortgage.
- Subdivision
- A housing development that is created by dividing a large parcel of land into many individual lots for sale.
- Subordinate Financing
- Any mortgage or other lien that has a lower priority than that of the first mortgage.
- Subordination
- "If you are refinancing your first mortgage and have an existing second or home equity line, one option is to "subordinate" the second mortgage: request that your second mortgage holder go back into the second lien position when you replace your existing first mortgage with the new refinance loan."
- Survey
- A print showing the measurements of the boundaries of a parcel of land, together with the location of all improvements on the land and sometimes its area and topography.
- Survey Affidavit
- Sweat Equity
- Contribution to the construction of a property in the form of labor or services, instead of cash.
- Swing Loan
- Sometimes called a bridge loan, a swing loan is generally a loan that is secured by a borrower's current residence to obtain the funds needed to purchase a new home if the current residence will not be sold prior to the purchase of a new home.
