Effective Interest Rate
The term effective interest rate is the actual return from a savings account or any investment where you pay interest when considering the effects of compounding costs over time. Through an effective interest rate, you can fully and correctly determine the real percentage rate that you own on a loan’s interest, a credit card, or any other debt type.
An effective interest rate is also referred to as an effective annual interest rate, the annual equivalent rate, or the effective rate.
The Effective Interest Rate Formula:
With:
i = Nominal Interest Rate
n = Number of periods
What does the Effective Interest Rate Mean?
When you look at loans, the way through which they are advertised will give you two types of information. Firstly, we’ll have the nominal interest rate, which doesn’t consider the effects compounding interest or fees have on the financial product. Secondly, and the one we focus on now, the effective interest rate, which gives you the real return paid on savings of the actual cost of a loan because it does take into account the effect fees and compounding interest have on the financial product.
For that exact reason, knowing and understanding what the effective interest rate means is important. Through a proper understanding of the effective interest rate, you can compare offers more accurately to make an informed decision based on the result.
How to Find the Effective Interest Rate?
To adequately explain how to find the effective interest rate from any financial product’s promotional information, we will look at two examples. Firstly, we’ll have Loan A that has a 5% interest rate that’s compounded monthly. Secondly, we’ll have Loan B with a 5.1% interest rate that’s compounded bi-annually.
Both of these loans are advertised with their nominal interest rate. Remember, this is the one that doesn’t take into account the effects fees and compounding interest has on the loan. To calculate the effective interest rate, we’ll use the formula shown above.
While the nominal interest rate for Loan A is smaller than that of Loan B’s, the effective interest rate from Loan B is lower than that of Loan A’s. This occurs because Loan B has fewer compounding times over the course of a year.
Popular Real Estate Terms
Capitalization rate used to convert the expected income derived from a property into its estimated asset value. The estimated asset value may be computed by dividing the annual income ...
One-time charge assessed by a bank or other financial institution at the closing of buying real property. The fee increases the effective cost to the borrower. One discount point translates ...
Marketable title that is free of encumbrances and disputed interests. Clear title is essential in order to convey a general warranty deed in a transaction. ...
Projecting what the total cost would be to construct a structure. Costs include material, labor, and lawyers' fees. ...
In real estate, Attractive Nuisance is how insurance companies classify something that is inherently dangerous and particularly enticing to children. A hazard located within a property that ...
A zero lot line is a term in residential real estate that refers to houses that are either very close to or at the edge of the property line. These houses are also called zero lot line ...
A legal procedure to sell a mortgage property to the highest bidder in order to satisfy a mortgage claim from a mortgagee against the value o the property. A foreclosure sale can occur from ...
Storage of inactive items, including automobiles, for a certain period. Normally, a storage facility, charging a fee, provides dead storage of items. To prevent deterioration, dead ...
Special tax incentive for the continued use and rehabilitation of historical buildings and old structures in an effort to arrest urban decay. Developers receive a credit based on a ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.