Learning Center

The plain-English real-estate glossary.

What does earnest money actually commit you to? Is a houseboat real property? What's a dive report? Every term a Puget Sound deal will throw at you, defined in one to three honest sentences — including the floating-home vocabulary most brokerages never learn.

20 terms

Transaction terms

The vocabulary of getting from offer to keys — contract, escrow, and recording.

Appraisal: A licensed appraiser's opinion of a home's market value, ordered by the lender to confirm the property is worth the loan. A low appraisal reopens the price conversation. See it on the buying timeline →
Appraisal gap: The difference when a home appraises below the contract price. Buyers cover it in cash, renegotiate, or lean on their financing contingency — deciding which in advance beats deciding under deadline.
Closing costs: Everything a buyer pays at closing beyond the down payment: lender fees, title and escrow charges, prepaid interest, insurance, and reserves. They arrive itemized on the Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure. Estimate your cash to close →
Closing Disclosure: The final, binding statement of your loan terms and closing costs, delivered before signing. Compare it line by line against your Loan Estimate — that's what it exists for.
Comparable sales (comps): Recently sold homes similar to yours in location, size, and condition — the evidence pricing opinions and appraisals are built from. On unique homes, choosing honest comps is the hard part. Request a pricing opinion →
Contingency: A contract condition that must be satisfied — inspection, financing, appraisal — or the buyer can exit with their earnest money. Each contingency runs on its own deadline, enforceable as written.
Counteroffer: The seller's (or buyer's) revised terms in response to an offer. Every counter voids the previous version, so read each one whole — small term changes move real money.
Earnest money: A deposit the buyer sends to escrow shortly after mutual acceptance, showing they're serious. It's credited back at closing — or, if the buyer exits outside their contingencies, potentially kept by the seller. See it on the buying timeline →
Escrow: The neutral third party that holds the money and documents while a sale completes — Washington closes through escrow rather than around a closing table. The escrow officer coordinates signing, funding, and recording. How escrow works →
Final walkthrough: The buyer's last look shortly before closing, confirming the home is in the condition the contract promised and agreed repairs are done. It's a verification, not a second inspection. The inspection checklist →
Mutual acceptance: The moment both parties have signed the same terms — the deal is 'under contract' and every contingency clock starts ticking from here.
Possession: When the buyer actually gets the keys, as set by the contract — often on recording, sometimes days later under a negotiated rent-back. Ownership and possession are separate questions.
Preliminary title commitment: The title company's report of what it found in the property's history and what it will insure — with exceptions listed. Read the exceptions page; easements and restrictions survive closing whether or not you do.
Purchase and sale agreement (PSA): The contract: price, earnest money, contingencies, closing date, and possession terms. In Washington its deadlines are the law of the deal.
Real estate excise tax (REET): Washington's tax on selling real property, paid by the seller at closing and calculated in graduated brackets on the sale price — some cities add a local portion on top of the state rate. Run it in the net proceeds calculator →
Recording: The county's official entry of the deed into public record — the legal moment a Washington sale closes. Funding without recording isn't closed yet. The closing-day guide →
Rent-back: A negotiated arrangement letting the seller stay in the home for a period after closing, usually paying the buyer. Useful when the seller's next home isn't ready.
Seller disclosure statement: The form on which a Washington seller discloses what they know about the property's condition. Honest disclosure protects the seller as much as the buyer — surprises found later cost more.
Settlement statement: Escrow's final accounting of the transaction: every debit and credit for each side, down to the prorated utility dollar. Sellers, check it against your net-proceeds sketch.
Title insurance: A one-time-premium policy protecting against defects in the property's ownership history — undisclosed liens, recording errors, competing claims. Lenders require their own policy; owners get one too. Closing & title costs →

20 terms

Financing terms

The money side — what lenders say, and what it actually means for your payment.

Adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM): A loan whose rate is fixed for an initial period, then adjusts periodically with the market. The trade: a lower starting rate against future uncertainty. Which ARM is the best alternative? →
Amortization: The schedule by which fixed payments retire a loan — early payments are mostly interest, later payments mostly principal. It's why total interest over a term dwarfs the rate number. See it in the financing calculator →
Cash to close: The total a buyer wires at closing: down payment plus closing costs, minus credits. It's the number that actually has to be in the bank. Estimate yours →
Conventional loan: A mortgage that conforms to the standards mainstream buyers of loans require — the default financing for typical houses and condos. Unique properties often need something else.
Debt-to-income ratio (DTI): Your monthly debt payments divided by gross monthly income — one of the main dials lenders turn when deciding how much you can borrow.
Discount points: Prepaid interest bought at closing to lower your rate — one point is one percent of the loan amount. Whether points pay off depends on how long you'll keep the loan.
Escrow reserves (impounds): Months of property taxes and insurance the lender collects at closing to seed the account it pays them from. Your Loan Estimate states the exact months.
FICO score: The credit score most mortgage lenders use, built from your payment history, balances, and credit age. It moves your rate, so check your reports before house hunting, not after. FICO scores and your mortgage →
Fixed-rate mortgage: A loan whose rate — and principal-and-interest payment — never changes for the whole term. The 30-year fixed is the American default for a reason: predictability.
Jumbo loan: A mortgage larger than the conforming limit for the county, underwritten to the lender's own standards. Common in Seattle-area price ranges; expect more documentation.
Loan Estimate: The standardized three-page form a lender must send within three business days of your application, itemizing the rate, payment, and closing costs. It exists so you can compare lenders line by line — use it that way. Getting a legitimate lender →
Origination fee: What the lender charges to make the loan, often quoted as a percentage of the loan amount. It's a closing cost, negotiable like the rest of the lender's fee stack.
Points: Shorthand for discount points — see that entry. Lenders also use 'basis points' (hundredths of a percent) when quoting rate moves.
Portfolio loan: A mortgage the lender keeps on its own books instead of selling, so it can underwrite unusual properties on its own judgment. This is how most floating homes get financed. Floating-home financing →
Pre-approval: A lender's written statement, after verifying your income, assets, and credit, of what it will lend you. This is the letter that makes offers real — not the same thing as pre-qualification.
Pre-qualification: A lender's informal estimate based on what you tell them, with nothing verified. Fine for early budgeting; too soft to carry an offer in a competitive market.
Prepaid interest: Interest from your funding date through the end of that month, paid at closing — your loan balance times the rate, divided by 365, times the days. Closing late in the month shrinks it.
Private mortgage insurance (PMI): Insurance protecting the lender when a conventional down payment is under twenty percent, paid by the borrower until enough equity accrues. It buys you into the market sooner at a monthly cost.
Rate lock: The lender's commitment to hold your quoted rate for a set window while the loan closes. Ask what the lock costs, when it expires, and what an extension runs.
Underwriting: The lender's verification of everything — your finances, the appraisal, the title — before releasing money. Answer document requests same-day and open no new credit until after recording.

The signature-niche vocabulary

19 terms

Floating-home & houseboat vocabulary

The language of the docks — the vocabulary most brokerages never learn, defined by the one that lives there. Part of Lake Union Living, our floating-home education resource.

Co-op moorage: A dock owned collectively by its homeowners through shares in a cooperative. Buying the home means being approved for — and buying into — the co-op, so board approval runs alongside escrow.
Dive report (float inspection): An underwater inspection of a floating home's float, stringers, and flotation by a diver — the floating-home equivalent of a foundation inspection. Sellers with a recent report negotiate from higher ground. The inspection checklist's floating section →
Dock: The shared walkway a community of floating homes lives along — part street, part front porch, part homeowners association. Dock culture is real, and buyers should walk it at different times of day.
Float: The foundation a floating home sits on — historically old-growth logs, now often concrete or a hybrid with added flotation. Its material and condition move value more than most interior finishes.
Floating home: A residence built on a float, permanently moored, connected to utilities and sewer, and generally treated as real property in Washington. It doesn't have propulsion and isn't meant to travel — that's what separates it from a houseboat. Floating home vs houseboat, compared →
Flotation: The buoyancy added to or built into a float — barrels, foam billets, or the float structure itself. Maintenance history matters: added flotation is a routine part of caring for older log floats.
FOWR (floating on-water residence): Seattle's regulatory category for on-water dwellings that aren't traditional floating homes — verified floating-on-water residences people live on. Classification determines what rules, financing, and taxes apply, so confirm it early.
Freeboard: The height between the waterline and the deck — a quick visual read on how a float is sitting. Photos of consistent freeboard over time are quiet proof a float is cared for.
Houseboat: In everyday Seattle usage, any floating dwelling — but technically a floating-on-water residence (FOWR): it has (or could have) propulsion and is documented as a boat. FOWRs finance, insure, and tax differently than floating homes. The full comparison →
Leased moorage: A slip rented under a lease — the home is yours, the water under it isn't. The lease's term, transferability, and rate history are due-diligence documents, not fine print.
Liveaboard: Someone who lives on a FOWR full-time, and the marina permission that allows it. Liveaboard slips are limited, so a FOWR purchase without confirmed liveaboard status is a different purchase.
LULA (Lake Union Liveaboard Association): The association representing Lake Union's liveaboard community — co-founded by our designated broker, Linda Bagley. Advocacy on moorage, shoreline rules, and the right to live on the water. Meet Linda →
Marine survey: A professional inspection of a FOWR's hull, systems, and seaworthiness — what lenders and insurers require before financing or covering a houseboat. Pairs with a dive or haul-out inspection.
Moorage: The right to keep your floating home or FOWR where it is — owned, co-op, or leased — and the monthly cost of that right. Moorage terms move floating-home value more than square footage does. The houseboat & floating-home guide →
Owned moorage: You own your slip (or a share of the dock) outright with the home — the most valuable moorage arrangement, and the one that finances most like ordinary real estate.
Pump-out: Emptying a FOWR's sewage holding tank, done at a pump-out station or by a mobile service. Floating homes are typically plumbed to the sewer; FOWRs aren't — service records are part of a clean sale.
Shore power: Electricity delivered to a floating home or FOWR from the dock through a marine-rated connection. Tidy, labeled shore-power connections are one of the first things a buyer's inspector looks at on the water.
Slip: The individual berth a floating home or FOWR occupies along a dock. End-of-dock slips with open sightlines carry premiums; the slip's terms travel with the moorage arrangement.
Stringers: The structural members that tie a float together and carry the home's weight to it. Divers check them; buyers should read what the dive report says about them.

9 terms

Ownership & property types

What you're actually buying — and the entities and encumbrances that come with it.

Co-op (housing cooperative): You own shares in the corporation that owns the building (or dock) and hold the right to occupy your unit. Boards can approve buyers, which adds a step no condo sale has.
Condominium: You own your unit's interior and an undivided share of the common elements, governed by a condo association. Dues, reserves, and the resale certificate are part of the purchase. Condominium & PUD ownership →
Deed of trust: Washington's version of a mortgage security instrument: a trustee holds the power to sell if the loan defaults. Paid-off loans should show a recorded reconveyance — old unreleased ones surface in title review.
Easement: Someone else's recorded right to use part of your property — a shared driveway, utility access, a view corridor. Easements survive the sale, which is why the title commitment lists them.
Homeowners association (HOA): The entity that maintains shared elements and enforces community rules, funded by dues. Read its budget and reserves like a business you're buying into — because you are.
Lien: A recorded claim against a property securing a debt — mortgage, taxes, contractor bills. Liens must be paid or released before clear title can transfer; escrow handles the payoff choreography.
Planned unit development (PUD): A community where you own your lot and home outright, plus a share of common areas through a mandatory association. Looks like a neighborhood, reads like a condo in the paperwork.
Title: The legal ownership of real property, and the recorded history behind it. 'Clear title' means that history has no unresolved claims — which is what the title company searches and insures.
Townhome: An attached home you typically own wall-to-wall and ground-to-roof, often with a small association for shared elements. The label describes the building; the deed and HOA documents describe what you actually own.

Vocabulary is the map, not the road. To see these terms in action, walk the buying timeline or the selling timeline stage by stage, and if the floating-home column of this glossary is the one you needed, the floating home vs houseboat comparison and the specialty page go deeper. A term your deal raised that isn’t here? Ask Linda — the glossary grows from real questions.

“Over the years I’ve noticed that there always seems to be one person who is at the center of the houseboat market, and right now Linda is that person. Knowledgeable, hardworking, and a good communicator.”

David F Google review · July 2023

First time here?

Get a free, no-pressure home consultation with Linda M. Bagley.

Thirty minutes, your questions, zero obligation — including a complimentary pricing opinion if you own a home you’re curious about. Linda answers personally.

Book my free consultation (206) 419-0065