A. A home loan or mortgage is a loan from a bank or financial institution that partly finances the purchase of your home. With a mortgage, you’ll only have to fork out a portion of your home’s cost; the lender takes care of the rest. You will need to pay back the bank or financial institution for the total amount of money borrowed, or the principal, at regular intervals with interest.

C. A credit score assesses a person’s creditworthiness based on his or her credit history. Lenders use credit scores to decide if they’ll approve you for a loan. In Singapore, the credit score ranges from 1,000 to 2,000. According to Credit Bureau Singapore, people who score 1,000 have the highest likelihood of defaulting on a payment, while those scoring 2,000 have the lowest chance of defaulting on a payment.

Together with the score, a risk grade and risk grade description are usually provided. It is extremely important that you keep a good credit history to secure a mortgage.

B. A guarantor is someone who pledges to cover your debt payments in the event that you fail to do so. As such, it is crucial to nominate someone who is close to you, financially stable and holds long-term assets such as a home. These factors may increase your chances of securing a loan as the guarantor can better assure the lender that they can step in and make payments should there be a need to.

C. The Certificate of Entitlement (COE) is a certificate that grants the holder the right to register, own and use a vehicle in Singapore for a period of 10 years. To learn more about the hidden costs of buying a new home, check out the OCBC OneAdvisor Home portal.

C. Once all the legal checks are completed, you will need to sign your mortgage document. At this point, the unfinanced part of your purchase will need to be paid using either your own cash or CPF. You will need to pay for the lawyer fees too.

For properties that are still under construction, the mortgage will remain in escrow. The unfinanced portion can be paid in stage payment leading up to the completion of the building.

True. Ms Lee Mei Ling, head of Home Loans at OCBC Bank, explains: “Mortgage insurance serves a very different purpose as compared to life insurance. The payout from a Life Insurance plan should be used to cover daily family expenses (e.g. transport fee, groceries, etc.) and costs of living.

"Mortgage insurance is meant to cover the outstanding home loan, thus ensuring a constant roof over the loved ones of an insured person. As a rule of thumb, the mortgage insurance term should match the home loan repayment term."