I'd like to think that at some point, every writer with a bit of good humor and perhaps a hint of cynicism, will poke fun at the industry that made their career possible, but eventually be mercifully forgiven by them. The homebuilding industry is one that has lots of jargon and many euphemisms that have amused me over the years, and I couldn't help but mentally gather them together for a column of my own someday.

The natural creation of buzzwords by building professionals, mostly in sales, and marketing, are not unlike industry-acceptable words created in other genres. And the interpretation of words and phrases used may vary from person to person. But most of these are used to soften the impact of the word or words themselves, making consumers more comfortable, and making the users less anxious when having to explain the technicalities of their proffered product and new home neighborhood.

In the new home sales office setting, sales consultants are asked to develop a vocabulary that carries with it the emotion and warmth of hearth and home. To begin with, did you ever notice that the word home is nearly always used instead of house? It lends familiarity and assumes, of course, that houses eventually become homes to buyers anyway (at least that is always the ultimate goal of new homebuilders). Using homes instead of houses makes them sound less like the mass arrangement of sticks and concrete, and more like the place where holiday dinners will be served. Along with that, comes the home site (more commonly thought of as the lot.) Builder sales personnel, by the way, are now referred to as consultants, community managers, or associates, (all three terms bolded) among other terms making salesmen and real estate agent smell just as sweet.

The guided tour through the model home is always rife with flowery jargon. A modest home or home site, of course, really means a small blip in the bird's eye view of the subdivision - oops! - I meant new home community. An efficient kitchen means that you had better take a good look at cabinet and counter space. Intimate dining areas may not accept full-sized dining room tables, and if they do, accompanying chairs may only accept those Atkin's dieters among us that are able to slip into their table-close locations. Homes that sport streets beside them or behind them are usually referred to as lending privacy, where no other homeowners will look in on you from that side; the noise factor is rarely discussed.

Many included features are those that builders throw into the sales price that they hope against hope you may not leave in, upgrading them to the hilt whenever possible. The included features are usually listed on the brochure, but may be difficult to find within the model homes themselves. And when you see a little sign inside a model home item that says optional opportunity, it may be hard to imagine what the home would look like without it. By the same token, when decorator is used in place of included or optional opportunity, it means that you may have to go to New York or San Francisco's wholesale decorating design districts to achieve the same look.

Two minutes to major transportation may mean that the freeway is around the corner and audible at that. Abundant open space can be a number of parcels under power lines that can't be used for any other purposes anyway. (Okay, that was a cold one) And move-in ready may refer to an inventory home that the builder had to throw lots of extras into because few potential buyers liked the floor plan design or the home's location.

By the way, when signing on the dotted line, remember that a purchase agreement is a contract, and an addendum is some kind of added contract or disclosure that you should read carefully now and not later.

Marketing promotions are always a hotbed of glossed-over connotations. Grand Openings can literally go on for months, with builder advertising and newspaper press releases promoting pre-grand-opening prices, dusty shoes previews and phenomenal sales activity, when, in fact, only three homes may have been sold to date. And a Grand Closeout could very well begin when there are still 30 homes remaining.

In all fairness, new home builders and marketers are not unlike other business professionals who put their best foot forward to make the purchase of a big ticket item seem less intimidating and more exciting. If you, as a homebuyer, need to know cold, hard facts from the builder of your home, however, the builder is usually there to get you needed information to put your mind at rest, or to assist you in your final decision about buying there. Because many sales are made on referral and reputation in a given new home area, builders generally do not wish buyers who dislike their product living in the area, even though the law does not preclude you from buying anywhere you like. They generally prefer, instead, to wish you luck in finding the new home you are truly searching for.

We Americans tend to like to hear and read all the good stuff when we shop for a new home. That's in spite of our own observation that a house sits on a postage-stamp lot or the fact remains that we would have to carry our groceries through four rooms to get to the kitchen from the garage. And although words and flowery expressions can contribute to our eventual feeling that we have made the right decision in the long run, homebuilders themselves hope we will look before we leap and buy the home that best suits our own individual needs.

Published: June 14, 2000

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

A veteran of the real estate and homebuilding industries since 1986, Dena Kouremetis first joined Realty Times as a new homes writer in 1998. Since then, she has authored four books, written consumer columns on new homes issues for websites and newspapers all across the country, contributed to builder trade magazines, appeared as a guest expert on several radio shows and even created a ten-chapter podcast for LendingTree.com’s homebuilder website, iNest.com, now available on iTunes, entitled Uncharted Waters; Navigating the Purchase of a New Production Home. Kouremetis recently joined her local Folsom, CA Coldwell Banker office as a broker associate while continuing to write for the real estate industry. For the past three years, she has been training real estate agents for both the resale and new homes industries, putting her experience, research expertise and gift of expression to work to help others entering the business.