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

Popular posts from this blog

Numbers Don't Lie, But Wherein Lies the Truth? (Posted November 21, 2016)

Said with enough conviction, you can make almost anything sound true.   Preface the fabrication with “according to a recent bi-partisan government study,” and you’re three quarters of the way to selling the lie to a lot of people.   Seriously, try this. The next time you’re at a dinner party or having coffee with friends, pepper this little tidbit into the conversation: “I read something really interesting the other day.   According to a recent bi-partisan government study – I think it took them three years to get it all done – middle-aged men who drive either a Toyota Camry or a Honda Odyssey have more testosterone than younger men who drive either a Ford F150 or a Dodge Charger.”   You’ll get some raised eyebrows and looks of mild disbelief, but don’t let that deter you.   Just lift up your hands, palms outward, and say, “I just think it’s interesting, and it makes sense when you think about it” – and then change the subject to something completely u...

Dumb as (or Smart as) a Box of Rocks (Posted June 27, 2016)

Obviously, you all want to know what Brexit means to the economy and the housing market specifically.   So do I!   But since my crystal ball is at the cleaner’s, let’s give the Brits and the European Union a little time to work out the terms of their separation and look at something else.   What’s a “fad ”?   With the help of Google, this is what I got as a definition: “an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object's qualities; a craze.” In April 1975, an advertising executive by the name of Gary Dahl invented the Pet Rock.   The idea came from his sitting in a bar with some friends who were complaining about the cost and time required to take care of various types of pets.   He marketed his “pets” by placing a rock in a box cut and shaped like one you would get at the pet store to carry home a puppy or a kitten.   Along with the box and the rock, a booklet was included...

Left Behind (Posted April 4, 2016)

It’s highly likely that almost every single one of you already read the Yahoo! Finance article about the survey that Chase recently completed.   For the seven people who decided to take a nap under a rock last week, I’m going to share some of the major talking points here – the rest of you can step away and have an ice cream or paint your cat’s toenails.   First off, the survey shows that an ALARMING 68% of Americans are starting the home search on their own (gasp!) with 45% using a computer or laptop (as opposed to some other type of technologically advanced processor like a microwave oven) as the first step in this search and 13% using their mobile devices.   (In other related news from the Department of the Obvious, scientists have found that fish still have no use of a bicycle and looking directly at the sun is inadvisable.)   With numbers like these, we should just throw in the towel and join the circus, right?   Here’s the weird thing: in the ...