The Ultimate Real Estate Glossary: Es
How many times have you had to google a term to understand real estate jargon? Whatever answer you give, it’s probably far too often!
To help you out, we’ve created the Ultimate Real Estate Glossary, a guide to all the terms you need to know in the real estate industry. This guide isn’t just useful to real estate professionals—it can also provide your tenants with a clearer understanding of the terms and definitions that you use when talking to them about your rental properties.
For this edition, we’ll go through the real estate terms that start with the letter E.
Real estate terms: The letter E
Early occupancy: This occurs when the landlord or seller allows the buyer to move into a property before the sale is closed.
Earnest money deposit: This is the down payment or deposit that the buyer makes at the time of the offer to prove their good faith.
Easement: An easement is a right that the property owner grants to another person to use their property for a specific purpose. The title remains with the owner.
Effective age: Effective age is the approximate age of a building given by an appraiser based on its current physical condition. The effective age can be very different from the actual age of the building.
Eminent domain: Eminent domain refers to the ability of the government to convert private property into public property, once the owner has been reasonably compensated.
Encumbrance: Pertains to the limitation, liability, or claim against a property that disallows its transfer or use for specific purposes. Some examples of encumbrances are liens, deeds of restrictions, and easement.
Encroachment: Encroachment happens when a property owner violates their neighbor by building or extending a structure across their property line, or unlawfully entering the property.
Escrow: Escrow is a legal arrangement between buyer and seller where a third party holds the property, assets, funds (for taxes and insurance), and payment on behalf of both parties. The third-party will release the items to the respective parties once they fulfill certain conditions.
Escrow account: An escrow account is one that’s set up by lenders so that borrowers can deposit their real estate taxes and property insurance into it.
Equal Credit Opportunity Act: This law, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, prohibits creditors from discriminating against anyone who wishes to apply for credit based on their race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, etc.
Equity: This is the amount of realizable value you own in a property, which can be computed by subtracting the unpaid balance of the mortgage from the fair market value of the property.
Eviction: Eviction occurs when the landlord removes the tenant from their property because they failed to fulfill one or several conditions in their agreement, such as failure to make rent payments or causing significant damage to the property. There are different laws and procedures regarding eviction in each state.
Examination of Title: Examination of Title pertains to the right of the buyer to inspect the chain of ownership of the title before purchasing a property. The buyer does this to ensure that nothing will legally prevent them from assuming the title and that the property title is valid and authentic.
Exchange/service account: An expense account that brokers use to cover costs for the properties they market.
Exclusions: Personal property, fixtures, and other items that aren’t up for sale or aren’t included in the purchase agreement are called exclusions.
Exclusive listing: An exclusive listing is one where the seller gives one broker or agent the exclusive right to sell the property within a given period, which means no other agent or seller can sell the property.
Expired (listing): When a property isn’t sold during the period stipulated in the listing contract between seller and listing agent, it is called an expired listing.
Conclusion
Teaching your clients the jargon and terms used in real estate can be exhausting—but with this guide, it doesn’t have to be.
By sharing this real estate glossary with clients, you can focus more of your time and energy on more relevant matters, such as actually managing your properties!
Got any other “E” terms we missed? Let us know!
Image courtesy of Andrea Piacquadio