(un) REAL ESTATE

My wife and I have been looking at houses recently, and of course, in this current economy it is what they term a 'Buyer's Market'. Perhaps some of you out there have also been looking at houses. Here's a word of advice (to be screamed as loud as possible while flailing arms): Don't Do It!

However, if you feel as though you must do this extremely silly thing and actually buy the damn place, stop for a second and add up the total principal & interest for a 30-year mortgage. The sum total would make even the Federal Reserve Chairman buy a new drool bucket.

So let's assume its too late and you've gone and bought the house because the real estate agent (a woman wearing three different plaids and Rambo earrings) assured you it would be snapped up by someone else any minute. Right. Homes with fake Ocelet skin wall paper in the living room are really big this year.

Whatever your placement on the real estate journey, it is important to understand how realtors often distort, like doctors & lawyers, perfectly good words of English into strange new meanings.

Examine, if you will, this convenient compendium of real estate terms and their correct definition: