Taking a look at the lighter side of today’s

real estate lingoDo you remember in school during spell-

ing lessons when your teacher would read a word aloud, encourage you to spell it by sounding it out and then make you look it up in the dictionary so you could use it in sen-tences, showing her that you knew its proper meaning and usage?

Seems to me we could all still use a vocabu-lary lesson these days. All of us! No excep-tions!

Whereas it was once cool to know how to spell leprechaun, it now behooves us to know the spelling and usage of more timely words and phrases such as: Subject to Third Party

“Golly,” says Gomer. “None of those are really cool words like Mississippi.” Indeed.

My husband asked my mother if he could have another piece of pie. She replied, “Baron, that is subject to third party approval.”

Well of course I let him have a piece of pie! It’s not as if I can control that anyway. Banks and lenders, on the other hand, have a different thought process.

When you see “subject to third party ap-proval” on a listing, it typically means there is a bank or lender who is really in charge, (kind-of like wives, but usually harder to communicate with). And in most cases, they’re losing money. They are the real ne-gotiators in a sale.

“Daryl and Sue don’t have enough money to pay their monthly mortgage. They need merci-

I’m not sure those sentences would have passed muster with Mrs. Johnson, but I put the word “merciful” in there to lead you in the right direction. I recently sat through

-mary goes like this: foreclosure=bad; short

the bank agrees to give you a lower pay-ment, sometimes a lower interest rate, some-times adjusts the type of loan you have (very important), all so you can keep your house. Because, after all, losing your house is bad for you and everybody else.

My favorite band from the ’80s was REO Speedwagon. I saw them live before they foreclosed.

REO is some-thing Realtors say to sound smart. Right? C’mon. It’s catchy. But you h ave to say each letter by itself.

R-E-O, a noun, is an acronym for “Real Estate Owned.” An REO is a property that has been taken back by the lender. The word “foreclosure” is a verb—it is the process in which a home is repossessed by a lender.

I know you were ready for that sentence. And I realize lots of people already know the

As it is so commonly used today, I thought it would be disrespectful not to include it

today than it did yesterday.

means, you should take advantage of the Nordstrom Note you just earned, because next month it’s not worth $20 anymore, it’s only worth $15. And now you don’t even know what to buy.

has decreased. True purchase power occurs when you have low-interest rates (anybody catching on here?) and a name-your-own-price market.

Back in school, af-

ter you learn new words, you were encouraged to use them in

daily life until they became part of your reg-ular vocabulary. I use leprechaun frequently in games of hang-man. That and the word Egypt, which is really hard to spell since you can’t sound it out. So, I am encouraging you to practice these new words and phrases un-til they get comfy like an old bathrobe.

Once we know how to use them correctly, we can move on to beating them, then using words like: sold, and Lamborghini, and re-tirement-in-Boca Raton.

Alisha Alway Braatz is a Broker with Cushman & Tebbs Sotheby’s International Realty and an accomplished writer. A graduate of Pepperdine University with majors in both Advertising and Creative Writing, she now resides

in Bend with her husband, Baron. Any free time of hers is given entirely over to travel adventures, coconut ice cream and fast cars. Alisha can be reached via e-mail at alisha@highendbend.com.

Whereas it was once

cool to know how to

spell leprechaun, it

now behooves us to

know the spelling and

usage of more timely

words and phrases.

by Alisha Alway Braatz, for The Bulletin Advertising Department

VocabularyLessons

Illustration by Nicole Werner

SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 2009 • THE BUILLETIN