Real Estate Classifications

Residential

All property used for housing, from small city lots to acreage, both single-family and multi-family, in urban, suburban, and rural areas.

Commercial

Income producing property, including apartment and office buildings, shopping centers, retail stores, hotels, theaters, and parking facilities.

Industrial

Land and buildings for industrial concerns, including factories, warehouses, and power plants.

Agricultural

Includes farms, ranches, orchards and timberland. This includes the small farm as well as the large acreage owned by agribusiness corporations.

Special Purpose

Churches, public schools, cemeteries, and government lands.

Physical Characteristics of Real Estate

Immobility

The location of any given parcel of land can never be changed.

Indestructibility

The permanence of land and the relative permanence of its improvements.

Uniqueness

No two parcels of real estate are identical, and all parcels differ geographically.

Home Ownership Concepts

• Apartment Complex: Groups of apartment buildings.
• Condominium: Fee simple ownership of an air space. Can be residential, industrial or commercial.
• Converted Use Property: Existing use structures, such as schools, factories, churches, warehouses which have been converted to residential use.
• Cooperative: Stock ownership in a corporation which retains title to real estate. In return, the stock owner receives a proprietary lease for occupancy of his/her unit.
• Multiple Use Developments (MUD's): Self contained developments combining stores, office space, theaters, apartments, and recreational facilities.
• Mobile Homes: Principal or vacation homes often situated in mobile home parks, offering complete residential environments with permanent community facilities as well as semipermanent foundations and hookups for utilities.
• Modular Homes: Prefabricated structures that arrive on site, preassembled into modules and ready to be finished on site.
• Planned Unit Developments (PUD's): Master planned communities, zoned under special cluster zoning ordinances which make maximum use of open space. A community association maintains common areas through fees paid by homeowners, but the owners have no direct ownership in these areas.
• Time Share: A number of individual purchasers share ownership in one vacation home. Each share entitles an owner to occupy the property for a certain period of time each year. The owners pay a purchase price plus an annual fee.

Mobile Homes

A mobile home is considered personal property if the land upon which it is located is not owned by the mobile home owner, or if it is not set upon a foundation or connected to utilities.

A mobile home becomes real estate when it is connected to utilities and set upon a foundation on land which is owned by the mobile home owner. It is considered set upon a foundation if it is off its wheels and set upon some other support.