Common Real Estate Buzzwords and What They Really Mean: A Guide for Home Buyers and Sellers in North Royalton

Are you familiar with real estate buzzwords? Every trade, every profession, and every industry has its own peculiar language, jargon, and buzzwords specific to that particular trade, profession, or industry. And that’s just as true for real estate as for any other. If you’ve ever been involved in a real estate transaction, you’re probably very aware of this – and were most likely confused by all the jargon and sea of buzzwords. We want to cut through some of the confusion and make the words peculiar to real estate more understandable. So here’s a guide to common real estate buzzwords for home buyers and sellers in North Royalton.

The Most Common Real Estate Buzzwords

Let’s get started with the common real estate buzzwords that you’re most likely to encounter as a home buyer or seller in North Royalton. These include . . . 

• Turnkey – A property that is move-in ready and requires no immediate renovations or repairs.
• Fixer-upper – A property that needs significant repairs or renovations before it can be considered livable.
• Equity – The difference between the current market value of a property and the amount owed on any outstanding mortgages or loans.
• Listing agent: The real estate agent who represents the seller of a property.
• Buyer’s agent or Selling agent: The real estate agent who represents the buyer of a property.
• Multiple Listing Service (MLS): A database of properties for sale, typically used by real estate agents to find properties for their clients.
• Pre-approval – A process where a lender reviews your financial information and determines how much money they are willing to loan you for a mortgage.
• Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) – Typically if you pay less than 20% down on a home purchase, you will have to pay for private mortgage insurance (PMI). It “is an amount of money that is often rolled into a monthly fee alongside a home buyer’s mortgage payments designed to offset a smaller initial down payment on a house.” Although the PMI payments are usually “rolled in with monthly mortgage payments, they can also get taken care of as an upfront lump sum payment.”
• Escrow Payments – “When a homeowner chooses to escrow his or her property taxes, he or she is electing to set aside money each month to go toward his or her property tax bill rather than pay for the bill in one large payment. Essentially, the mortgage company pays the property taxes on behalf of the homeowner annually, while the homeowner pays toward that cost each month.”
• Multiple Offers – It sometimes happens, especially in today’s market with high demand and low inventory, that sellers that a seller will get more than one simultaneous offers on the for-sale home. Fairly common now, this is known as a multiple-offer situation.
• Best and Final Offer – “When in a multiple offer situation, [an] agent will reach out to those interested bidders and tell the real estate agents to submit their ‘best and final offer’ by a deadline.”
• Under contract – A property that has an accepted offer and is in the process of being sold, but has not yet closed.
• Contingent: A contingent property is one where the seller has accepted an offer from a buyer, but the sale is contingent upon certain conditions being met. For example, a buyer may make an offer on a property contingent upon the sale of their current home or upon certain repairs being made to the property. The contingency must be met before the sale can proceed, and if the contingency is not met, the sale may fall through.
• Home inspection – A thorough inspection of a property to identify any potential issues or necessary repairs before finalizing a sale.
• Appraisal – An assessment of the value of a property, typically performed by a licensed appraiser.
• Pending: When a property is listed as “pending,” it means that an offer has been accepted by the seller and the transaction is in progress. Typically, a property is listed as pending after the buyer has completed their inspections and any contingencies have been met. The sale is considered pending until the transaction is completed and the property is officially sold.
• Closing costs – Fees and expenses associated with the sale of a property, including title search fees, appraisal fees, and other miscellaneous costs.
• Closing – The final stage of the home buying process, where ownership of the property is transferred from the seller to the buyer.

The Latest in Real Estate Buzz Words

Now, we come to the newest real estate buzzwords that home buyers and sellers in North Royalton need to be aware of. These (sometimes freshly coined) real estate buzzwords include . . . 

• Densification – This is simply a term used to describe how many people reside within a certain area. Densification issues become more important as building costs increase and availability decreases.
• Placemaking – “When developers think big these days, they think locally. Placemaking is an incorporative approach to community building that uses and fosters the skills and character of the local community to help redefine neighborhoods.”
• Prop Tech – “Prop tech” is just a trendy term applied to the (concerted and collective) effort to use technology “to modernize antiquated elements of the real estate industry.”

The Classic and Most-Used Real Estate BuzzWord

When it comes to real estate buzzwords, there’s one that you have almost certainly heard and will keep hearing. And that is, of course, “location.”

This buzzword has been used and leveraged for going on a hundred years now and for good reason. The location of a home or any property is of paramount importance. In fact, “the wisdom of the old adage ‘location, location. Location’ transcends any trend in the market. Location has never mattered more to the real estate industry, and searches on the term have climbed steadily since the dawn of the digital age.”

Although this word is firmly and wisely entrenched in the industry we include it here among real estate jargon because it is often thrown around too cavalierly. As a result, it is often used as a buzzword to elicit an emotional response rather than simply as a descriptor as it should be.

More Help with More Real Estate Buzz Words

As you can see, there are more than a few real estate buzzwords to be familiar with. In fact, we’ve just scratched the surface here – there is a sea of these words being bandied about in the industry today. And that makes it difficult for home buyers and sellers in North Royalton to chart a course through these turbulent and turgid waters of confusing jargon and buzzwords. That’s why most buyers and sellers should lean on the expertise of an experienced North Royalton who knows these words and thus can translate and be a needed guide. Our agents are ready to do just that.

If you’re a North Royalton home buyer or seller and need help with real estate buzzwords, contact us today at (440) 628-1321.

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