Where cozy means tiny and charming means needs work.
An investment property with carrying costs that exceed the rental income, effectively eating the owner alive month by month. Named because it takes bigger and bigger bites out of your bank account.
When one agent represents both buyer and seller in the same transaction, creating a conflict of interest wrapped in a commission opportunity. It's like having the same lawyer represent both parties in a divorce.
When city planners wave their magic zoning wands and declare that your neighbor's residential lot can suddenly become a mini-mall, or vice versa. It's the bureaucratic process of changing what you're legally allowed to do with a piece of land, often involving endless public meetings where everyone argues about traffic and property values. Democracy in action, one variance hearing at a time.
When a seller (usually a family member) sells a property below market value and treats the difference as a down payment gift. It's nepotism in real estate form, and the IRS has feelings about it.
A contract binding a buyer to an agent for a specific period, ensuring the agent gets paid even if the buyer tries to ghost them after months of work. It's basically a pre-nup for the house-hunting relationship.
Scheduling multiple property viewings in rapid succession, typically in the same neighborhood, to maximize efficiency and minimize windshield time. It's speed dating for houses, and just as exhausting.
An acronym for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat—a wealth-building strategy where investors recycle their capital by refinancing rental properties to pull out equity for the next deal. It's the real estate equivalent of a perpetual motion machine, minus the laws of thermodynamics.
Money you surrender to a landlord as insurance against your inevitable humanity—spilling wine, scuffing floors, or daring to hang pictures. In real estate, it's the upfront cash that proves you're serious about a property, which you'll spend the next decade trying to get back. Also serves as a landlord's retirement fund in 47% of rental agreements.
Any mortgage that doesn't meet Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac guidelines, whether due to size, property type, or borrower qualifications. It's the misfit toy of lending, typically more expensive and harder to get.
The charge lenders levy for processing your loan application and creating your mortgage. It's basically an admission fee to the debt party, typically 0.5-1% of the loan amount.
In construction and real estate, the detailed process of measuring and quantifying all materials needed for a project from blueprints, basically turning drawings into shopping lists. Also known as "quantity takeoff," it's the unglamorous math that prevents contractors from discovering mid-project that they're three truckloads of concrete short. Get it wrong, and someone's explaining cost overruns to very angry people.
Someone who purchases property on behalf of another party who can't or won't reveal their identity, ranging from perfectly legal privacy plays to outright mortgage fraud. The real estate equivalent of a burner phone.
Money the landlord provides for the tenant to customize leased space, typically in commercial properties. It's the 'make yourself at home' budget that determines whether you get new carpet or get to keep the previous tenant's questionable design choices.
Someone who attends multiple open houses with no intention of buying, just enjoying free snacks and architectural tourism. They're often retired, bored, or working for a competing agent on reconnaissance.
A provision allowing an owner to sell individual parcels from a larger mortgaged property, common in land development. It's how developers avoid having all their eggs in one very large, very financed basket.
Any claim, lien, charge, or liability attached to property that diminishes its value or restricts its use—essentially the baggage your real estate comes with. These encumbrances can include mortgages, easements, restrictions, or unpaid taxes that follow the property regardless of who owns it. Think of burdens as the property's credit score problems that become your problems.
A property marketing status indicating a listing will be active shortly, used to generate buzz and pre-market the property before it officially hits the MLS. It's the real estate equivalent of a movie trailer, complete with the same level of hype.
The escape hatch in every smart buyer's offer—a contingency allowing them to back out or renegotiate if the inspection reveals the house is held together by hope and termites. It's the 'just kidding' clause of real estate.
A contractual right giving someone the first opportunity to purchase a property before the owner can sell to others. It's like a permanent dibs on real estate.
A deed conveying property with implied warranties that the grantor owns the property and hasn't already sold it to someone else. The 'I'm pretty sure this is mine to sell' document.
A Home Equity Line of Credit that lets homeowners borrow against their property's equity with a revolving credit line, typically at variable interest rates. It's a financial temptation that transforms your home into an ATM, for better or worse.
A contract where one lien holder agrees to take a backseat to another in the priority line for getting paid if things go sideways, voluntarily accepting second-class status. It's cutting in line, but in reverse and with lawyers involved.
The deed section beginning with 'to have and to hold' that defines the extent of ownership being conveyed. Medieval legal poetry that survived into modern contracts for no good reason.
See earnest money, but longer and more official-sounding. Because real estate professionals get paid by the syllable.