(A Humorous Perspective Offered by a Frequent Buyer)
By Randy Petrick
I’m a skeptic – I admit it freely. That said, however, I still feel a need to warn you that in my experience (I’ve bought five homes in my lifetime), what you read in the typical real estate ad and what you get in reality can be entirely different things.

Fortunately, if you have an insider’s knowledge of the terminology involved, you can save yourself a lot of grief. As you read through the glowing descriptions in the newspaper, here are some of the terms you’ll see – and the true definitions you’ll need to know.
1. Corner lot: There just wasn’t much else to commend this home, so the builder put it where drunks could run into it. Your best hope of appreciation will be from potential lawsuits.
2. Prime corner lot: Oops, the builder put a too-small house on this lot, so we’re going to tell you even more (a lot) about the lot instead of telling you about the house.
3. Master Plan Features Recreational Lake: This housing tract was built on a swamp and the builder was unsuccessful in draining one particular section.
4. Bonus Room: Poor architectural design resulted in some extra space we couldn’t figure out what to do with.
5. By appointment only: The current occupant is such a slob we’ll need to bring in a cleaning crew prior to anyone visiting. Believe us; we’ll need time to make that happen.
6. Three-car garages are standard: CCRs in this neighborhood won’t allow parking your cars on the front lawn.
7. Park-like Grounds: All the neighbor kids use this yard to play in.
8. Bright: This home has small rooms, but we’ve painted them all white to make them look bigger.
9. Architecturally distinctive homes: There is just no way the architect was sober when he/she came up with these designs.
10. Media niche: A small inconvenient space where the builder accidentally put a cable-television outlet.
11. Surrounded by rolling hills: Keep a pump handy…drainage from the surrounding area all heads toward this home.
12. Great networking capabilities: Zero lot-lines; you’ll have neighbors breathing on you no matter which way you turn.
13. One-of-a-kind: No one else in his or her right mind will ever replicate the poor design of this home.
14. Two architects designed the residences: We had so many problems with the designs the first architect gave us that we hired a second person to botch them up further.
15. Centrally located courtyard: Local building codes prevented us from removing an old oak tree in the middle of the property.
16. Remodeled two years ago: Don’t count on any fixtures being contemporary.
17. Rare find: The one half-decent house in the middle of the worst neighborhood you can imagine.
18. Quality and perfection throughout: Major structural flaws in this home have been covered over with nice tile, paneling, upgraded carpeting, fancy wallpapers, and an acoustic ceiling.
19. Needs TLC: Needs to be Totally Leveled and re-Constructed.

Next time you look at a real estate ad, you’ll see it in a whole new way.
Good luck and happy hunting.