Leverage Ratios and Open Mortgages

Leverage Ratios and Open Mortgages covers mortgage repayment designs, balloon maturities, interest-only periods, graduated payments, growing equity, self-amortizing loans, open mortgages, and leverage ratios.

Use these pages when loan structure changes payment timing, principal repayment, borrower flexibility, refinance risk, or lender protection. It sits inside Mortgage Structures, so readers can move up when the broader property-finance context matters.

Use the table below to choose the narrower mortgage or real-estate finance branch before applying a term to a loan file, closing record, servicing review, investor report, appraisal, or valuation model. Move into the term page when the document, calculation, party role, lien position, or property cash flow matters.

What This Branch Covers

What to Check

• Payment design, amortization schedule, interest-only period, balloon date, open or closed terms, and prepayment terms.
• LTV, CLTV, combined liens, endowment or alternative instrument features, and maturity structure.
• Borrower cash-flow capacity, payment shock, refinance path, and collateral value.
• Effect on affordability, default risk, principal reduction, prepayment, and lender recovery.
• Documented terms rather than informal product labels.

Common Mistakes

• Treating lower initial payment as lower total risk.
• Ignoring balloon maturity and refinance dependence.
• Comparing LTV and CLTV without all liens.
• Assuming open-mortgage or alternative features mean no cost or restriction.

Mortgage-structure content is educational and does not provide borrowing, lending, legal, tax, or refinancing advice.

In this section

Choose a subsection first. Deeper term pages live inside each subsection, which keeps large topic hubs readable.