Understanding mortgages

Introduction

Welcome to this free Open University course on mortgages – loans used for buying homes.

The course explores the mortgage products available in the UK market – their interest rate and other characteristics – and examines the factors involved in making good choices from the product range. It explains why and how mortgages can be actively managed by borrowers through such options as overpaying, offsetting and remortgaging.

The course also examines the mortgages from the viewpoint of the lenders, including the factors that affect their decisions about making mortgage advances.

By completing the course you will not only become more knowledgeable about the mortgage market, but also more confident in making smart decisions about one of most important areas of personal finance.

You will find activities, animations and audio material as well as quizzes to enable you to assess your understanding of the content. You will also be provided with a series of links to explore further the subjects and issues that you will explore in this course.

Understanding mortgages is a free, short course produced in collaboration with MoneySavingExpert.com [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .

The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey. Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.