50 free Mortgage trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free fun mortgage trivia questions with answers, written for lender team meetings, real-estate office parties and anyone who has ever signed a 30-year note. It opens with the good stuff: why the word literally means 'death pledge', which town in 1775 saw the first building society, what a discount point actually buys you, and where the word escrow comes from. The middle section covers the institutions and the acronyms: FHA and the 3.5 percent down payment, the New Deal's HOLC and its infamous maps, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, VA loans with nothing down, FICO's 300-to-850 range, adjustable-rate notation and reverse mortgages at 62. Then it turns to the 2007-2010 subprime crisis, NINJA loans, Lehman, Dodd-Frank and The Big Short, with a few pop-culture questions on It's a Wonderful Life and Monopoly to keep the room awake. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia before publishing and each question links to its source. Difficulty runs from easy to hard, so seasoned loan officers and first-time buyers can play the same round.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'mortgage' comes from a Law French term meaning what?
Death pledge
The pledge 'dies' either when the debt is paid or when the borrower defaults and loses the property.
Q 02A buyer who puts 20 percent down has a mortgage with what loan-to-value ratio?
80%
Go above 80 percent LTV in the US or Canada and mortgage insurance is usually required.
Q 03In the early years of a standard amortising mortgage, most of each payment goes toward what?
Interest
The split flips over time until the last payments are almost entirely principal.
Q 04What is the most common mortgage type in the United States?
The 30-year fixed rate
Canadians mostly take five-year fixed-rate closed mortgages, and Britons lean toward variable rates.
Q 05What is a mortgage nicknamed when its balance falls due long before its payment schedule ends?
A balloon
Before the FHA existed, most American mortgages were short balloon loans with big down payments.
Q 06Which mortgage type, where principal is never paid down, became tied to the subprime crisis?
Interest-only
Borrowers count on selling or refinancing before the whole principal comes due.
Q 07Why can observant Muslims not use a conventional mortgage?
Sharia law forbids paying or receiving interest
One workaround has the bank buy the house outright and act as landlord while the buyer pays it off.
Q 08What does mortgage insurance protect?
The lender against borrower default
It is typically required on loans above 80 percent loan-to-value and pays out after foreclosure.
Q 09In mortgage jargon, one 'point' equals what?
1% of the loan amount
Borrowers pay discount points up front to buy a lower rate and a smaller monthly payment.
Q 10A mortgage escrow account is used to pay which two costs?
Property taxes and insurance premiums
The word comes from Old French escroe, a scrap of parchment held by a third party until a deal closed.
Q 11The word 'escrow' derives from an Old French word for what?
A scroll or scrap of parchment
The scroll was the deed a third party held until the transaction was complete.
Q 12On an ARM, what is the 'teaser'?
A cheap introductory period
Caps limit how often and how far the rate can move after the teaser period ends.
Q 13Outside the United States, what is an ARM more commonly called?
A variable-rate or tracker
The rate follows an index such as a central-bank rate or, historically, LIBOR.
Q 21Which regulator placed both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship in September 2008?
The FHFA
The Federal Housing Finance Agency's move was described as one of the most sweeping government interventions in private financial markets in decades.
Q 22Which government agency created and guaranteed the first mortgage-backed security in 1970?
Ginnie Mae
Its securities are still the only MBS backed by the full faith and credit of the US government.
Q 23VA home loans were created by which 1944 law?
The GI Bill
Formally the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, it lets eligible veterans buy with no down payment and no private mortgage insurance, in exchange for a funding fee.
Q 14How old must a borrower be to take out an FHA-insured HECM reverse mortgage in the US?
62
The first HECM went to Marjorie Mason of Kansas in 1989, a year after the programme was signed into law.
Q 15When was the Federal Housing Administration created?
1934
The National Housing Act set it up to insure private lenders' loans; it joined the new HUD in 1965.
Q 16Since 2009, what has been the minimum down payment on an FHA-insured loan?
3.5%
The 3.5 percent floor took effect in January 2009; the agency's early rules had already cut the typical down payment to 10 percent and stretched terms to 20 or 30 years.
Q 17Which 1968 law outlawed the redlining that FHA appraisal standards had encouraged?
The Fair Housing Act
FHA guidance had once told appraisers to avoid 'inharmonious racial or nationality groups'.
Q 18The New Deal's HOLC, created in 1933, existed mainly to do what?
Refinance defaulted mortgages
It made just over a million loans by 1935 and drew the colour-coded 'residential security' maps now synonymous with redlining.
Q 19Fannie Mae was founded in which year as part of the New Deal?
1938
Its real name is the Federal National Mortgage Association; it went private in 1968 and into conservatorship in September 2008.
Q 20Freddie Mac was created in 1970 for what purpose?
To compete with Fannie Mae
The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation is headquartered in McLean, Virginia, and was also placed in conservatorship in 2008.
Q 24What is the range of a classic FICO credit score?
300 to 850
FICO scores were introduced in 1989 by Fair, Isaac and Company, and the bureaus launched rival VantageScore in 2006.
Q 25Which three national credit bureaus supply the data behind US mortgage credit checks?
Experian, Equifax and TransUnion
Lenders often pull all three and use the middle score.
Q 26The world's first building society was founded in 1775 in which English city?
Birmingham
Richard Ketley, landlord of the Golden Cross inn, started it; Britain's Nationwide is now the world's largest.
Q 27A building society differs from a bank in that it is owned by whom?
Its members
Abbey National kicked off the UK demutualisation wave in 1989 and eight more societies followed by 1999.
Q 28In It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey runs what kind of institution in Bedford Falls?
A building and loan
Frank Capra's 1946 film has James Stewart talking a panicked crowd out of a bank run while Mr. Potter circles.
Q 29In Monopoly, how much does the bank pay you when you mortgage an unimproved property?
Half its purchase price
Unmortgaging costs the same amount plus 10 percent interest.
Q 30What surcharge does Monopoly add when you lift a mortgage?
10%
It is one of the few places a fixed rate has not changed since the 1930s.