Real Estate Investments - Contract Jargon You Should Know

Investing in real estate can be a fantastic way to saveMortgage assumption clause. If you've ever heard
for your retirement that tends to be more stable thanabout investing with no money down, or with other
stock market investing over the long term and it alsopeople's money (think late night infomercial) many times
promises greater returns than the stock market asthese things are referring to mortgage assumption and
well.that is where you assume the mortgage of the seller.
Of course, the downside is that it takes more effort toThe terms at which you will do that are often spelled
invest in real estate than it does to invest in the stockout within the mortgage assumption clause of the real
market. Part of that effort involves actually purchasingestate contract.
your investment property. Many times you'll have eitherZoning clauses. Many times a piece of property you
an attorney or a real estate broker with you to signare buying will or will not be zoned for specific
the papers at closing, and they can answer anypurposes and many times you will require assurances
questions you have about the contract... and youthat the building is in fact zoned correctly. Those
probably will have many questions especially at theassurances will usually be spelled out in the zoning
beginning when you first start investing.clause of the contract.
Nevertheless, it's a good idea to be familiar with someTitle report clause. This is similar to the title insurance
of the different clauses that you'll run up against whenclause in that it deals with who pays for the title report
signing contracts to close on real estate investments.as well as which company you will be using to run a
That's exactly what I wanted to talk about todaytitle report through. Again, there are no set rules here
because in this article I will discuss several differentabout who pays for this report and so you can often
clauses that you can expect to find in a real estatenegotiate, and you will do so in the title report clause of
contract.the contract.
The first clause I want to talk about is the titleThere are literally thousands of different clauses that
insurance clause. When you purchase real estate, thecan be used in a real estate contract and I've just
cost of title insurance is usually a fairly large cashbarely scratched the surface of three or four here
expense that is due during closing. There's no rule thattoday but hopefully you found the few that I've chosen
says who has to pay for it; you or the seller, and oftento be useful and in fact you can use them to do more
times you can haggle over that, and the place whereresearch if you feel the need to.
you do that is the title insurance clause of the contract.