Honolulu Lite
People looking to buy or rent a home have to be language detectives these days. Realtors have devised their own vocabulary to describe the property they are pushing. It is sort of like Esperanto, the artificial language that supposedly was going to take over the world -- except the real-estate version could be called Desperanto because the sellers are desperate to convince buyers that the pile of crumbling bricks they are looking at is actually a castle in the rough waiting for a little tender, loving care. Real estate lingo
tends to curb appealLocal real estate broker Stephanie Gieseler has discovered the Rosetta stone of home-selling jargon, and I'm sure her colleagues would be disappointed that she leaked the code to me. Here are a few phrases you should be wary of and what they actually mean:
>> Country feel in the city. (Neighbors have chickens.)I noticed that many of the code words applied mostly to mainland houses. You don't see many Tudor mansions in Hawaii, for instance. (Or Fo'dor, for that matter.) I've done my share of house-shopping here and deciphered quite a bit of local real-estate lingo:>> Handyman special. (Earth-moving equipment is needed to get to the front door.)
>> Completely renovated. (All cats have been found and removed; toilets now flush.)
>> Tudor. (Has back AND front doors.)
>> Move-in easy. (Front door missing.)
>> Bachelor pad. (Red velvet walls, smells bad.)
>> Lots of built-ins. (Previous owner nailed furniture to the walls.)
>> Euro kitchen. (Smells of garlic.)
>> Must see. (Unbelievable by ANY standards.)
>> Steps from beach. (If you are Paul Bunyan. To get to the beach on foot from one of these houses, you'll need a map, compass and Sherpa guide.)>> Peek-a-boo ocean views. (You can see a little slice of the ocean if you stand on your toes on the toilet and squint between your neighbors' houses.)
>> Old Hawaii charm. (No roof. No walls. Sheriff comes once a month to roust you off your property.)
>> Nature-lover's dream. (Nightmare, more like it. You'll be sharing your home with plenty of indigenous species, like roaches, centipedes and the occasional scorpion.)
>> Close to bus stop. (The kiss of death. When a bus stop figures prominently in home advertising, watch out. Your carport will fill up with "interesting" people when it rains.)
>> Seller motivated. (In Hawaii, with monster mortgages, what that means is "Seller suicidal," which for a buyer isn't necessarily bad.)
>> Kissed by tradewinds. (If it is kissed by tradewinds on normal days, it will take flight like Dorothy's house during a regular winter storm.)
>> You won't believe this price! (That's Larry Price. He'll be living in your garage.)
>> Lots of security. (Next door to a halfway house. Police patrols regularly.)
>> Ohana Special! Bring tutu! (Sears shed in back yard.)
>> View the stars on romantic tropical nights. (Large hole in roof of master bedroom.)
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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