Please sort this out in a way I can understand. A primer on mortgage pricing should have been my first column, but for some reason it has taken me 2 years to get to it. Interest rate is the number that is multiplied by the loan balance to get the interest payment due the lender. The rate quoted on a mortgage is an annual rate, but it is applied monthly.
Points are upfront charges expressed as a percent of the loan amount.
Points are related to the interest rate. The 2 points would be available to defray the borrower's settlement costs. Origination fees are points in disguise. Some lenders charge origination fees because reporting services and newspapers show rates and points but not origination fees. To the borrower, points and origination fees are the same.