what does apr mean

"APR" means Annual Percentage Rate. The yearly cost of a loan, including interest, insurance, and the origination fee (points), expressed as a percentage. Often applied to mortgages, credit cards, and automobile financing.

APRs are a way to calculate the annual cost of loans, taking into consideration loan origination fees (points) and the other costs associated with securing a loan. The additional costs include appraisal and credit report fees as well as processing and document fees.
  
As a means of protecting consumers from companies who did not disclose the fees or discount points associated with a particularly low start rate on an adjustable rate loan or below market rate on a fixed rate loan, APRs give consumers a way to check the true cost of a loan.

There are 2 forms that help you with this information. One tells you what the closing costs are (called the Good Faith Estimate or GFE) and the other is a detail of payments and a calculation of Annual Percentage Rate or APR (called the Truth-in-Lending or TIL Disclosure).
 
The closing costs consist of 2 types: recurring and non-recurring. In the case of a refinancing, the non-recurring costs are the ones that you have to pay because you are getting a new loan. The new lender needs title insurance, you need an appraisal etc. In the case of "no-cost" or "low-cost" loans we cover these costs by getting you a loan at a sufficiently higher rate so that the investor is willing to pay a premium which furnishes us with the money to cover the non-recurring closing costs, There should be an item on the disclosures that shows the credit for non-recurring costs.

Recurring closing costs are items that you must pay anyway: interest, property taxes and insurance but must pay early as a consequence of refinancing.

We send out disclosures with your loan application.  If the rate, loan program, and cost that we subsequently agree on is not the same as on the initial disclosures, we will send new disclosures.