Real estate investing glossary
Short, plain definitions of the terms wholesalers, flippers and landlords use every day, each with a worked example.
Last reviewed October 26, 2026 by the Trident team.
What terms do real estate investors need to know?
Start with the deal math: ARV, the value after repairs, and MAO, the most you can offer. Then the strategies: wholesaling, assignment fees and double closes, BRRRR, and creative financing such as subject-to and novation. Finally the lead and outreach terms: skip tracing, pre-foreclosure, absentee owner and 10DLC.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| 10DLC | 10DLC, short for 10-digit long code, is the US carrier system for application-to-person (A2P) business text messaging from standard local phone numbers. Businesses register their brand and each messaging campaign through The Campaign Registry before sending. |
| Absentee owner | An absentee owner is a property owner who does not live at the property, which investors identify when the owner's mailing address differs from the property address. Absentee-owned homes include rentals, inherited homes and vacant properties. |
| ARV (after repair value) | ARV, or after repair value, is the estimated market value of a property after all planned repairs and renovations are finished. Investors estimate it from recent sales of similar renovated homes nearby and use it to set offers, loan amounts and resale prices. |
| Assignment fee | An assignment fee is the amount a wholesaler is paid for transferring their right to buy a property, under a purchase contract with the seller, to another buyer. It equals the difference between what the end buyer pays and the wholesaler's contract price. |
| BRRRR | BRRRR is a rental investing method: buy a property below value, rehab it, rent it out, refinance it based on the new appraised value to pull out most of the cash invested, and repeat with that cash on the next property. |
| Double close | A double close, or double closing, is two separate real estate closings on the same property, usually on the same day: first the investor buys from the seller (the A-to-B closing), then sells to the end buyer (the B-to-C closing). |
| MAO (maximum allowable offer) | MAO, or maximum allowable offer, is the highest price an investor can pay for a property and still reach their target profit. The common formula is after repair value times a percentage, often 70%, minus repair costs, minus any wholesale fee. |
| Novation | In real estate investing, a novation is an agreement that replaces an existing purchase contract with a new one, typically letting an investor partner with a seller to repair and list the property on the open market, paying the seller an agreed price and keeping the difference. |
| Pre-foreclosure | Pre-foreclosure is the period between a homeowner's default on a mortgage, usually marked by a notice of default or a foreclosure filing, and the foreclosure sale. During this time the owner can still sell, refinance or catch up on the loan. |
| Skip tracing | Skip tracing is the process of finding current contact details, such as phone numbers, emails and mailing addresses, for a person who is hard to reach. Real estate investors skip trace property owners from a lead list so they can call, text or mail them about selling. |
| Subject-to | Subject-to, or sub-to, is a way of buying real estate where the buyer takes title while the seller's existing mortgage stays in place in the seller's name. The buyer makes the payments, but the loan is not formally assumed or paid off. |
| Wholesaling | Wholesaling is a real estate strategy where an investor puts a property under contract with a seller and then assigns the contract, or buys and immediately resells the property, to an end buyer for a profit, without renovating it. |
Where can I go deeper on these topics?
The guides go further than the definitions: creative financing covers subject-to and seller financing in depth, the cold call scripts guide covers wholesaling outreach with a TCPA note, and the skip tracing cost guide compares published prices. The calculators turn ARV, MAO, BRRRR and assignment fee formulas into numbers.