The investor's glossary: the terms that matter when you find your own deals.
The words that come up when you pull your own lists, call owners, and price a house. A to Z, one line each.
Last updated September 2026.
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- 1031 exchange
- Sell one investment property and put the money into another without paying the capital gains tax yet.
- 1% rule
- A quick screen on a rental: monthly rent of at least one percent of the purchase price.
- 70% rule
- A flipper's ceiling: pay no more than seventy percent of the after repair value, less the rehab.
A
- Absentee owner
- The owner's mailing address is somewhere other than the house. Often a landlord who lives out of the area.
- Acquisition cost
- Everything it takes to buy the house: the price, closing costs, inspections, and loan fees.
- After repair value (ARV)
- What the house is worth once the work is finished. Every offer on a flip works back from it.
- Appraisal
- A licensed opinion of value, ordered by the lender before it will fund a loan.
- Assignment
- Selling your purchase contract to another buyer instead of closing on the house yourself.
- Assumable loan
- A mortgage the buyer can take over from the seller, keeping the rate that was written years ago.
B
- Bird dog
- Someone who finds properties for an investor and gets paid for the lead.
- BRRRR
- Buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat. The refinance pulls your cash back out so you can buy the next one.
- Broker price opinion (BPO)
- An agent's written opinion of what a property is worth. Faster and cheaper than an appraisal.
- Buy and hold
- Buying a property to keep and rent out rather than to resell.
- Buy box
- Your written rules for what you will buy: market, price, condition, and the return you need.
C
- Cap rate
- Net operating income divided by the price. What a building earns before financing.
- Capital gains tax
- Tax on the profit when you sell an investment property.
- Cash buyer
- An investor who buys without a loan. The people wholesalers sell their contracts to.
- Cash flow
- What is left of the rent after the loan, taxes, insurance, and repairs are paid.
- Cash on cash return
- A year of cash flow measured against the cash you put in.
- Closing costs
- The fees that land on both sides at closing: title, escrow, recording, and lender charges.
- Comps
- Recent sales of similar houses nearby. The starting point for pricing an offer.
- Contingency
- A condition in the contract that lets the buyer walk away, like an inspection or a financing clause.
- Creative financing
- Buying without a bank: seller financing, subject to, or a lease option.
D
- Days on market
- How long a listing has sat for sale. A long run is a seller with a reason to talk.
- Deal pipeline
- The board your live deals move across, from first contact to closed.
- Debt service coverage ratio (DSCR)
- The income a property produces, measured against its loan payment. Some lenders use it in place of your pay stubs.
- Distressed property
- A house in trouble: behind on the payments, damaged, or sitting empty.
- Do not call (DNC)
- A number on the national registry. Skip traced numbers come back flagged, so you know before you dial.
- Double close
- Two closings on the same day: you buy from the seller, then sell to your own buyer.
- Driving for dollars
- Driving a neighborhood looking for houses that show neglect, then finding out who owns them.
- Due diligence
- The window to inspect the house, check the title, and price the work before you are committed.
E
- Earnest money
- The deposit that tells a seller you mean it. It goes toward the purchase at closing.
- Equity
- The part of the house the owner owns outright: what it is worth, less what is owed on it.
- Escrow
- A neutral third party holding the money and the paperwork until a sale closes.
- Exit strategy
- How you get your money back out: resell, rent, refinance, or assign the contract.
F
- Fair market value
- What a house would sell for on the open market with neither side under pressure.
- Flipping
- Buying a house, fixing it, and reselling it for a profit.
- Foreclosure
- The legal process a lender uses to take a property back after the payments stop.
- Free and clear
- The owner holds the house with no mortgage on it. Every dollar of a sale price is theirs.
- FSBO (for sale by owner)
- A house the owner is selling without an agent.
G
- General contractor
- The person running the rehab. Their price and their schedule decide whether a flip works.
- Gross rent multiplier (GRM)
- The price divided by a year of gross rent. A fast screen before you do the real math.
H
- Hard money
- A short term loan from a private lender, priced on the deal rather than on your credit.
- High equity
- The owner has paid most of the house off, so there is room in the price for an offer to work.
- Holding costs
- What a house costs you every month you own it: loan, taxes, insurance, utilities, and upkeep.
- House hacking
- Living in one unit of a property and renting the rest to cover the payment.
I
- Inherited
- The house passed to heirs. Many of them live elsewhere and never planned to own it.
- Investor buyer
- An owner who bought the property as an investment rather than to live in.
J
- Judgment
- A court ruling that the owner owes a debt, recorded against the property.
L
- Lead list
- A saved set of properties you work: skip trace the owners, call them, and track what happened.
- Lien
- A claim against a property for an unpaid debt. It has to be cleared before the title can pass clean.
- Lis pendens
- A public notice that a lawsuit touching the property has been filed. Often the first sign of a foreclosure.
- List stacking
- Combining lists so the owners who turn up on more than one rise to the top.
- Loan to value (LTV)
- The loan balance measured against what the property is worth.
M
- MAO (maximum allowable offer)
- The most you can pay and still hit your number. Work back from the after repair value and the rehab.
- MLS
- The listing service agents use. Anything on it is on market, and priced that way.
- Mortgage
- The loan secured by the property. When it stops being paid, the lender can foreclose.
- Motivated seller
- An owner with a reason to sell sooner than they planned. Every list you build is aimed at them.
N
- Nest Leads
- The Invest Nest's 21+ motivated seller indicators, switched on inside property search.
- Net operating income (NOI)
- Rent less the operating expenses, before the mortgage payment.
O
- Off-market
- A property that is not listed for sale. Where the deals with room in them live.
- Out of state owner
- The owner lives in another state. Distance makes a house easier to let go of.
- Owner occupied
- The owner is living in the house rather than renting it out. The opposite of absentee.
P
- Pre-Foreclosure
- The owner is behind on the mortgage and the lender has started the process, but the house has not been taken yet.
- Pre-Probate
- The owner has died and the estate has not been settled. Heirs often want the house sold.
- Private lender
- An individual or a small firm lending their own money on real estate.
- Proof of funds
- A letter or a statement that shows a seller you can close.
- Purchase agreement
- The contract that sets the price, the terms, and the date.
Q
- Quitclaim deed
- A deed that hands over whatever interest the seller has, with no promise the title is clean.
R
- Refinance
- Replacing the loan on a property with a new one, sometimes taking cash out on the way.
- Rehab
- The work a house needs before it sells or rents. Every offer is built on that number.
- Rent roll
- The list of units, who is in them, and what each one pays.
- REO (real estate owned)
- A house the lender took back at foreclosure and now holds on its own books.
- Return on investment (ROI)
- What you made, measured against what you put in.
S
- Seller financing
- The seller carries the loan and you pay them instead of a bank.
- Skip tracing
- Finding the owner's phone number, email, mailing address, and linked properties from the property record.
- Subject to
- Buying the house and leaving the seller's existing mortgage in place.
T
- Tax delinquent
- The owner has stopped paying the property taxes, which is often the first thing to slip.
- Tax Liens
- A claim the government records against a property when the taxes go unpaid.
- Title
- Legal ownership of the property, and the record of everyone with a claim on it.
- Title search
- The check that turns up the liens, the judgments, and the heirs before you close.
- Trust owned
- The property is held by a trust rather than by a person.
- Turnkey
- A rental sold already fixed up, and in most cases already rented.
U
- Under contract
- A signed purchase agreement that has not closed yet. The clock is running.
V
- Vacancy rate
- The share of your units sitting empty over a year.
- Vacant
- Nobody is living in the house. One of the strongest signals that an owner is ready to deal.
W
- Wholesaling
- Putting a house under contract and selling that contract to another investor for a fee.
- Wholetail
- A light cleanup, then a sale on the open market. It sits between a wholesale and a full flip.
- Wraparound mortgage
- A second loan from the seller that wraps around the one already on the house.
Z
- Zoning
- What the local government lets you build or do on the lot.
In the product
Where these words live in The Invest Nest.
- Property search Off-market, MLS, days on market, distressed property
- Nest Leads Pre-Foreclosure, absentee owner, vacant, high equity, Tax Liens, Pre-Probate
- Lead lists Lead list, list stacking
- Skip tracing Skip tracing, do not call
- Property data Comps, equity, loan to value
- Deal pipeline Deal pipeline, under contract, assignment
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