A structure that has been partially or entirely constructed at another location and moved onto the property (on a permanent foundation). A manufactured home may or may not be a mobile home.

Margin

The number of percentage points the lender adds to or subtracts from the index rate to determine the interest rate adjustments. The margin is constant throughout the life of the mortgage and is specified in the promissory note.

Marketable Title

A title that a reasonable buyer would accept because it appears to lack any defect and covers the entire property that the seller has purported to sell.

Maturity date

The day on which the outstanding principal, interest and fees on a loan must all be repaid.

Mechanic's Lien

A statutory lien that secures the payment for labor or materials supplied in improving, repairing, or maintaining real or personal property.

Merged Credit Report

A Credit Report that contains information from at least three credit bureaus. Any duplicate entries are combined to provide a concise summary of outstanding liabilities and credit history.

Mixed Use Property

Commercial and Residential use at the same time

Modification

A process where the terms of payment are modified outside the original terms of the contract agreed to by the lender and borrower.

Money Market Account

An Interest-bearing account at a bank or other financial institution. Such an account, usually pays interest competitive with money-market funds but allows a limited number of transactions per month.

Mobile home

A type of residence that’s built upon a wheeled chassis and can be transported from site to site.

Monthly Fixed Installment

The portion of the total monthly payment that is applied toward principal and interest. When a Mortgage is negatively amortized, the monthly fixed installment does not include any amount for principal reduction and does not cover all the interest. The loan balance therefore increases instead of decreasing.

Monthly Housing Expense

The sum of Homeowner's monthly mortgage principal and interest payments, hazard insurance premiums, property taxes, and homeowner's association fees, plus monthly debt service.

Modular home

A factory-built home that’s erected on-site, with the appearance and characteristics of a site-built residence.

Mortgage

A legal document giving a lender a lien on real estate to secure repayment of a loan. Mortgage loans generally run from 10 to 30 years, after which the loan is required to be paid off. Also called deed of trust and/or security deed.

Mortgage Banker

An individual or organization that originates real estate loans for a fee, resells them to other parties, and services the monthly payments.

Mortgage Broker

An Individual or Organization that markets mortgage loans and brings lenders and borrowers together. A Mortgage Broker does not originate or service mortgage loans.

Mortgage insurance

For conventional loans, insurance that protects the lender if you default on your loan. If your down payment is less than 20%, most lenders will require you to pay mortgage insurance. Also called private mortgage insurance (PMI).

Mortgage Insurance Premium (MIP)

An insurance policy used in Fair Housing Act (FHA) loans if your down payment is less than 20 percent. The FHA assesses either an "upfront" MIP at the time of closing, or an Annual MIP that is calculated every year and paid in 12 installments.

Mortgage Life Insurance

A form of Insurance specifically designed to protect a repayment mortgage. If the policyholder were to die while the mortgage life insurance was in force, the policy would pay out a capital sum that will be just sufficient to repay the outstanding Mortgage.

Mortgage Disclosure Improvement Act (MDIA) 2008

Enacted to Insure that consumers receive good faith estimates of Truth-In-Lending-Act (TILA) disclosures at the beginning of the application process and to provide sufficient time for consumers to review the disclosures before consummation can take place.

Mortgage Loan

A loan secured by a mortgage or deed of trust on real property.

Mortgage Note

A note evidencing a loan for for which real property has been offered as security.

Mortgage type

Generally, there are three basic mortgage programs: Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) loans and conventional mortgage loans. VA loans are only offered to qualifying veterans and surviving spouses, while FHA loans are available to all qualifying borrowers. Both VA and FHA loans are guaranteed/insured by the federal government. This insurance protects the lender (not the borrower) should the borrower default and the lender sustains a loss. Conventional loans are available to all qualifying borrowers and are not insured or guaranteed by the federal government.

Mortgage Rate

The rate of interest charged by a mortgage lender.

Multi-family residence (2 to 4 units)

A residential property with 2 to 4 individual housing units (duplex, triplex or quadplex).

Multi-family Mortgage

A Residential Mortgage on a dwelling that is designed to house more than four families, such as an apartment complex.

Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

A listing stating the agent will allow other agents to try to sell the property. Under this agreement, the original agent gives the selling agent a percentage of the commission or some other stipulated amount.

Management fee

A service fee or charge paid to an investment manager.

Market capitalization (Cap)

The market value of a company. Market capitalization can be determined by multiplying the number of outstanding shares of a company’s stock by the stock’s current market price per share.

Market risk

The possibility that the value of an investment will fall because of a general decline in the financial markets.

Markit CDX Emerging Markets 5-year Total Return Index

An index comprising credit default swaps (CDS) on sovereign debt from three regions: 1) Latin America; 2) Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and 3) Asia. The index measures the performance of and replicates the behavior of a fictitious portfolio that buys one CDX Emerging Markets 5-year Index contract and invests the remaining notional principal amount in money market instruments. The portfolio is always invested in the most recently published (on-the-run) CDX Emerging Markets 5-year series that it tracks. (Whenever a new CDX Emerging Markets 5-year series is issued, due to a regular index roll [every March and September] or due to a credit event in the current series, the CDS position in the reference portfolio is rolled into the on-the-run/reduced index position.)

Markit CDX North American High Yield 5-year Total Return Index (CDX NA HY)

An equally weighted index that measures the performance of 100 liquid non-investment-grade reference entities (those given a long-term credit rating by Fitch, Moody’s and/or S&P that is lower than BBB-/Baa3) domiciled in North America that trade in the credit default swaps (CDS) market. The index measures the performance of and replicates the behavior of a fictitious portfolio that buys one CDX NA HY 5-year Index contract and invests the remaining notional principal amount in money market instruments. The portfolio is always invested in the most recently published (on-the-run) CDX NA HY 5-year series that it tracks. (Whenever a new CDX NA HY 5-year series is issued, due to a regular index roll [every March and September] or due to a credit event in the current series, the CDS position in the reference portfolio is rolled into the on-the-run/reduced index position.)

Maturity date

The date when the principal amount of a loan, bond or any other debt becomes due and is to be paid in full.

Mid capitalization (Cap)

A reference to either a medium-sized company stock or an investment fund that invests in the stocks of medium-sized companies.

Mid-cap fund

A fund that invests primarily in mid-cap stocks.

Mid-cap stocks

Stocks of companies with a medium market capitalization. Mid caps are often considered to offer more growth potential than larger caps, but less than small caps. They also are considered to offer less risk than small caps, but more than large caps.

Money market fund

A mutual fund that invests in short-term, high-grade fixed-income securities. Money market funds seek the highest level of income consistent with preserving capital. In other words, they try to maintain a stable share price.

Morningstar

A leading mutual fund research and tracking firm that categorizes funds by objective and size, then ranks fund performance within those categories.

Morningstar (MStar) Lifetime Allocation Indexes

A series of unmanaged, multi-asset-class indexes designed to benchmark target-date investment products. Each index is available in three risk profiles: aggressive, moderate and conservative. The index asset allocations adjust over time, reducing equity exposure and shifting toward traditional income-producing investments. The strategic asset allocation of the indexes is based on the Lifetime Asset Allocation methodology developed by Ibbotson Associates, a Morningstar company.

Morningstar (MStar) Lifetime Moderate Indexes

Each of the Nationwide Target Destination Funds has an individual Morningstar index to go with it that matches the year number in the fund name. The Nationwide Destination 2010 Fund uses the Morningstar^® (Mstar) Lifetime Moderate 2010 Index. The other Target Destination Funds follow suit, changing only the number in the index name (2015, 2020, 2025, 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, 2050, 2055, 2060). The Morningstar Lifetime Allocation Indexes definition is used as an overarching benchmark index description; an individual market index definition is not used for each fund.

Morningstar (MStar) Lifetime Target Risk Index

One of a series of unmanaged indexes that cover a global set of stocks, bonds, and commodities and are designed to benchmark asset allocation products across a risk spectrum ranging from conservative to aggressive. Asset-class weights are adjusted annually and rebalanced quarterly, based on an asset allocation methodology from Ibbotson Associates, a Morningstar company.

MPT Statistics (Modern Portfolio Theory)

Alpha, beta, and R-squared are modern-portfolio-theory measures of a fund's relative risk, based on a least-squares regression of a fund's excess returns on the excess returns of a market index. Standard deviation is not considered an MPT statistic because it is not generated through the same formula or mathematical analysis as the other three statistics.

MSCI ACWI

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in global developed and emerging markets as determined by MSCI.

MSCI ACWI ex USA Index

An unmanaged, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of global stocks in developed and emerging markets, excluding U.S.-based companies.

MSCI ACWI

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in global developed and emerging markets as determined by MSCI.

MSCI ACWI ex USA Growth

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap growth stocks in global developed and emerging markets as determined by MSCI; excludes the United States.

MSCI EAFE Index

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index. The index is designed to measure the performance of the stocks in developed markets outside the United States and Canada.

MSCI EAFE Value Index

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in developed markets as determined by MSCI; excludes the United States and Canada.

MSCI Emerging Markets Index

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in emerging-country markets as determined by MSCI.

MSCI Emerging Markets Net Total Return Index

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in emerging-country markets as determined by MSCI. The net total return component measures whole market performance, including price performance and income from dividend payments, after the deduction of withholding taxes.

MSCI World Index^SM

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of large-cap and mid-cap stocks in global developed markets as determined by MSCI.

MSCI World Index^SM Free

An unmanaged, free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the performance of global developed-market equities. The “Free” suffix denotes an index with a somewhat different history but the same constituents and performance in relation to its counterpart without the suffix.

Mutual funds

An investment company registered with the SEC that buys a portfolio of securities selected by a professional investment adviser. Mutual funds can have actively-managed portfolios, where a professional investment adviser creates a unique mix of investments to meet a particular investment objective. They can also have passively-managed portfolios, in which the adviser tries to match the performance of a selected benchmark or index.