StateCourse Education · Mortgage
Buying a home usually costs more money than a family has saved. A mortgage lets people borrow money to buy a home and pay it back over time. Here, we explain how that works one small idea at a time.
Start here
Every chapter starts with something simple: borrowing money, making a payment, owning a home, or promising to pay someone back. Only after that do we introduce the English terms used in the mortgage business.
If someone lends you money, you have to pay it back. Learn what you borrowed, what interest is, and why more time can mean paying more.
English terms: principal · interest · term
Source: Mortgage Loan Brokering & Lending · Lesson 02
See how one payment can be split into interest and the money you still owe, and why that split changes over time.
English terms: amortization · principal balance · interest-only
Source: Mortgage Loan Brokering & Lending · Lesson 02
Learn about the paper where a borrower promises to repay the loan and where important loan rules are written down.
English terms: promissory note · acceleration · alienation · prepayment
Source: Mortgage Loan Brokering & Lending · Lesson 02
Learn what these common mortgage words mean and why people use them when they talk about the cost and size of a loan.
English terms: points · APR · LTV · CLTV
Source: Mortgage Loan Brokering & Lending · Lesson 02
Learn why a lender can use the property as protection if the borrower does not repay the loan, and what document makes that possible.
English terms: security instrument · deed of trust · trustor · beneficiary · trustee
Source: Mortgage Loan Brokering & Lending · Lesson 03
Learn why the order of claims on a property matters and why some debts are ahead of others.
English terms: recording · lien · priority · reconveyance · subordination
Source: Mortgage Loan Brokering & Lending · Lesson 03
Learn, in simple terms, who may do mortgage work in California and why the state has rules about who can do it.
English terms: DRE broker · MLO endorsement · NMLS · licensed activity
Source: Mortgage Loan Brokering & Lending · Lesson 01
California-specific
If you want to learn more later
StateCourse Education is free and does not give licensing credit. Its job is to make the subject feel familiar first. If you later choose mortgage or real-estate licensing, the ideas and English terms will already make sense.