type effect
 

I know there is a 'type' text effect when you want to animate text, but is there a delete text effect, specifically in motion or fcp5, i'm not finding a premade effect on either so I assume I"ll have to make shift it, any suggestions?

Motion, yes, you can reverse the keyframes on text effects.

FCP5, apply text effect, then reverse the clip (time remap) - possibly in a nested timeline, if you have to.

I'm not at my mac, but I'm pretty sure there's a "type text" effect in the text button