Real Estate Know How

From the beginning of time, a man's home has been his castle. In the modern world we defend our home ownership rights with legal contracts rather than swords. These contracts, such as mortgages, titles, contracts for deed, and disclosures provide stability in the real estate market and enable real properties to be bought and sold freely.

No two pieces of real estate are exactly the same, even identical condo units have a slightly different view. Hence the old adage-location, location, location-retains significance. Because buying real estate requires a substantial investment, for many people their home is their biggest investment, specialists provide needed information to real estate buyers and sellers.

When buying or selling your own real estate, here are some useful specialties that you should consider employing:

• Appraiser: Performs real estate valuation services.
• Real Estate Broker: Assists buyers and sellers through the complete transaction.
• Relocation Service: Assists home buyers with the complete transition to their new home and neighborhood.

When most Americans think of real estate, they are thinking of their own single family home. Within that category there are subsets of housing tenure that may affect your situation. The typical situation is owner occupancy in which the person living in the property owns it.

Condominiums are different; the condominium is the whole set of individual units and the land they sit on. In a Condo, being an owner means that you own the air-space within the boundaries of the unit as specified in the Declaration. Although a Condo title is the strongest possible, fee simple title, what you have title to is air-space wall to wall, ceiling to floor.

The concept of housing tenure extends to how properties are connected to contiguous residences and land. Common categories are:

• Multi-Family House: Typically multi-story detached buildings, each floor is a separate apartment or unit.
• Terraced House or Townhouse or Rowhouse: Consists of multiple buildings in a row with shared walls without intervening space.
• Semi-Detached dwellings:

  Duplex- A property consisting of two units with one shared wall.

  Single Family Detached Home: A home with no contiguous walls.

• Portable dwellings:

  Mobile Homes: A residence which may be moved on wheels.

  Houseboats: A floating home.

Most people don't have $200,000 in the bank and therefore need capital, usually a mortgage loan. These are loans for which the real property itself constitutes the loan collateral. Banks are willing to make such loans at reasonable rates because if the borrower defaults the lender can foreclose. Foreclosures require filing a court action which initiates the process of the bank assuming ownership of the property to get their money back.