Skip to main content

Let's Be Clear

 
Recently, I went into a clothing store to look around and let the sales clerk who has an unusually high opinion of his fashion sense believe that I was going to purchase something – it’s always fun to tease those guys!  As I was milling about, the following occurred:

Older Woman (approaching younger woman):  “What are you looking for?”
Younger Woman:  “Owen.”
Me:  “You’re not going to find him in that rounder of shirts.  I just looked through it and didn’t find anybody.”

Both women first looked at one another and then looked at me with a quizzical look on their faces – no words.  I just smiled back at them.  They narrowed their eyes and fixed me with a cold, hard stare as they backed away (and I just kept smiling and didn’t break eye contact with them – it was an epic staring contest).  

What in the name of all that is holy and licensed by Disney does this have to do with mortgages and real estate, you ask.  Well, absolutely nothing, really.  I just thought it was funny and thought you might find it a teensy bit humorous, too.  I’m only kidding.  Like the exchange described above, choice of wording can take things in unintended directions.  

Wording, in a real estate contract, is SUPER important.  I’ve seen some contracts where one of the agents, who clearly missed her/his calling to be a novelist (a really bad one, I might add), had inserted an addendum that was so long they contained plot twists no one saw coming and characters with a penchant for stealing avant-garde art installations while sipping cheap wine from Nebraska – and at the end of it all, the only thing they really wanted to convey was the fact the buyer wanted the seller to leave the washing machine but not the dryer.  I’ve seen other contracts with hand-written margin notes that resembled markings found on the Rosetta Stone (that will probably take longer to decipher without help).  In many cases, all of this is at the behest of the client who wants to make sure everything is “in writing”.  I’m going to let you decide amongst yourselves how you want to address that, but at the end of the day, you want to make sure everything is clear to ALL PARTIES.  Simple rule of thumb: write like you’re trying to make sure a sixth grader will understand your message.  (I’ll let you insert your own comments here – I’ll wait.)

What MOST agents and their clients don’t know is that in a real estate contract, from the mortgage side of things, there are certain things that can be written in/added that can absolutely KILL the deal – and there are others that can cause some major damage and will take time (and some pixie dust) to heal.  Whether the deal is killed or maimed, the end result is the same: DELAYS – and NO ONE wants those!  My biggest recommendation is a simple one: before you put on your creative writing hat and start spilling ink to get your demands in writing, give your favorite lender a call (I know a really good one) and just run your ideas by them.   It’ll save you a lot of time from looking for the proverbial Owen in a rounder of shirts, believe me.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Definition of Insanity (in Real Estate)

More than a couple of years ago, I witnessed something that makes me laugh and cringe at the same time.  Having lunch at a local restaurant, I spied a real estate agent and a loan originator having what I would characterize as a “first date”. I couldn’t help but overhear little snippets of their conversation, and as far as I could tell, things were going relatively well . . . at least until the agent asked the LO this question: “So, do you like to sit at open houses with agents?”  I immediately looked to the LO’s face awaiting the response.  I didn’t need to hear another single word coming out of the LO’s mouth because his face said everything:  you would have thought the agent had asked him if he enjoyed bobbing for apples in a pool of acid judging by the look on his face.  While his face was communicating complete revulsion, his lips said, “Yes, of course.”  And that’s when I looked over at the agent’s face to see, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Time for a New York-Style Housing Fix

Previously, I’ve written about a man who works in our office who lived in New York City back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s – let me assure you that while that does seem like a very long time ago, it’s not nearly as far bac k as when the wheel was invented and humankind learned to harness the power of fire. If you’ve been to New York City recently and blissfully walked around Harlem to get chicken and waffles at Sylvia’s on Malcolm X Boulevard between 126 th and 127 th Streets or stopped in at Keybar on 13 th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A to wedge yourself into a cozy corner next to their notable fireplace, you wouldn’t get a sense that these areas were once . . . not as welcoming and glitzy as you now see them. Our office mate has told some fairly interesting stories of living in those and other areas of New York City that give a much different sense.   In the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, no matter how many great things you heard about Sylvia’s food, 127 th Str...
Post a Comment
Read more

Change: the Only Sure Thing

Which headline is better for grabbing your attention and prompting you to read the article to which it’s attached: “Credit Reports to Exclude Certain Negative Information, But Read on to See if This Even Applies to You” or “ Credit Reports to Exclude Certain Negative Information, Boosting FICO Scores”?   Obviously, the former is less than tantalizing while the latter makes you say, “Tell me more!”   I was in the “tell me more” camp, and the folks at The Wall Street Journal sucked me into their vortex. The development, set to go into practice on July 1 st , is certainly a departure from how the Big Three (Experian, TransUnion , and Equifax) have done things in the past, but it’s not going to wave a magic wand and make bankruptcies, foreclosures, short sales, etc., go away.   It’s sort of a bittersweet development.   Let me explain: Many tax liens and civil judgments will be removed from people’s credit reports if they don’t include a complete list of a...
Post a Comment
Read more