Common Real Estate Buzzwords and What They Really Mean: A Guide for Home Buyers and Sellers in Effingham County and Savannah

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. Most real estate agents are only familiar with the language, jargon, and buzzwords of their own trade. They communicate with clients and other agents using their own lingo. But what happens when their clients aren’t familiar with the lingo? They get confused, frustrated and dissatisfied. That’s why it’s crucial for agents to realize that their language can sometimes be a barrier between them and their clients.

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 Effingham County and Savannah.

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 Effingham County and Savannah. These include . . . 

  • 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.”
  • Coming Soon – As a way to generate interest and create buying enthusiasm, increasingly more agents are advertising properties as ‘coming soon.’” This means that the property isn’t formally listed and “officially on the market but is expected to be ready for sale within 21 days.”  

The Latest in Real Estate Buzz Words

Now, we come to the newest real estate buzzwords that home buyers and sellers in Effingham County and Savannah 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 buzzwords 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 Effingham County and Savannah 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 Effingham County and Savannah who knows these words and thus can translate and be a needed guide.

Thanks for taking a look at our real estate blog. We hope that by reading this, you have gotten a better understanding of the many real estate terms that are used in the real estate business. I am always eager to help you anyway I can, so if you have any questions about real estate or about buying or selling a home, please don’t hesitate to contact me today at (912) 695-6932. I look forward to hearing from you!

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