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
Wood sheeting made from gluing together at lest three layers of veneer. The grain is placed at right angles with each adjoining layer's providing additional strength. ...
Commercial building having several different uses blending together. For example, retail shops are on the first floor, professional offices are on floors two through ten, and a restaurant ...
Interest computations based only on the original principal. For example, the simple interest on a $100,000, 8% loan is $8,000. It is compared with compound interest which is applied to the ...
The amount of inherent risk for a mortgage in granting a mortgage. An operating principle in mortgage risk rating is that the mortgage cannot exceed 2.5 times the mortgagor's annual income, ...
Party that receives part or all of a construction job to do from the general contractor. ...
To approximate the worth or valuation of property To give an appraisal value estimate of property. Property value appraisals are never exact, and are at best approximations of actual ...
report containing financial information about a business or individual. The required financial statements for a real estate company are balance sheet, income statement, and statement of ...
Factor in real estate appraisal. A type of physical depreciation owing the lack of normal upkeep, such as broken glass and doors and discolored paint that negatively impacts the value of ...
The integrity, morals, and principles guiding an individual's or profession's actions. ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.