Don’t Use Acronym Stew When Talking Real Estate to People

REO      BPO      LTV      CLTV      DTI      GFE

If you work in the real estate industry, the letters above may make perfect sense.  If you don’t it may look like a cross between alphabet soup and acronym stew.

Many of us get so caught up in the acronyms we use daily, that we forget that many people do not use these words letters every day and that many have never heard them in these combinations.

When it comes to something as complicated as the purchase of a home, it’s important that the buyer and seller understand what their real estate agent or loan officer is talking about.

I’m usually pretty good about this, but I realized that I too can be guilty when a client asked me the other day what an REO is.  I thought REO had become pretty common.  It stands for real estate owned and refers to a home that a lender has taken back as the result of a foreclosure. In other words the bank now owns the home.

This was a good reminder to me that I need to make sure that my buyers and sellers need to clearly understand what I am talking about and that I need to refrain from serving up alphabet soup and acronym stew to any of them.  Though I and others in the industry may be able to decipher them without a second thought, the last thing a buyer or seller needs is to add more stress and confusion to a real estate transaction.

If you are planning to buy or sell a home and want the assistance of real estate broker who wants to make sure you understand what is going on, please give me a call at 714-319-9751.