The loan officer said seasoning twice before I finally asked what she meant
I went into a small bank branch to ask about a loan on a piece of land, which is my whole interest here. The officer was working from a script and kept using words I didn't know, and one of them was seasoning.
I let it go the first time. Second time I stopped her and asked. She said it means how long you have owned the property, or how long the money has sat in your account, before they will lend on it. Some lenders will not do a cash-out refinance against a new appraised value until the borrower has held title for a set stretch, often six months or a year depending on the program, and she said that number moves and I would need it in writing from whoever I actually borrow from.
The reason it stuck is what happened next. There was a man in the next cubicle who clearly knew her, and he said, half to me, that he had a house rented and finished in nine weeks and he still had to sit on it until the calendar let him refinance. He had the tenant, the receipts, the higher value, and none of it mattered until the clock ran.
I'm not doing houses. But I had pictured this whole buy, fix, rent, refinance thing as a loop you spin as fast as you can work, and it turns out there's a timer built into it that has nothing to do with how fast you work.