Pirate Phonics - Do Your Clients Understand Your Real Estate Lingo?

As many of you probably know, Sunday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, a day to celebrate swashbuckling and decry land lubbers.

It's a silly day, one that I never had heard of until a colleague here at DotLoop mentioned it earlier this week.

It got us thinking, though: every industry has its own "language" - real estate is no different. But how helpful is that to your clients?

Do your clients, for example, understand what a short sale is? Or what it means to be FHA certified? Do they know what escrow means or why they need to sign a certain document and only initial another?

A purchase contract, after all, like most legal documents, is not designed to make it easy to understand, but to legally protect certain parties by using obscure, sometimes archaic (sometimes Latin) language.

Your job, then, as an agent, is to translate the legalese and help them navigate the choppy waters and keep them from walking the plank.

After all, with a real estate transaction, your clients are looking to you to be the captain of the negotiation, to keep a watch out for them from the crow's nest, and to help them set sail on their new life in their new home.

Arrrrrrr you up to the challenge?