Chapter 1 - Basic Real Estate Concepts

Question 1

appurtenance

Answer 1

All rights or privileges that result from ownership of a particular property and that move with the title. (Rights that ‘run with the land’ and are an integral part of the property.)

Question 2

bill of sale

Answer 2

An instrument transferring ownership of personal property. (Personal property cannot be transferred using a deed.)

Question 3

chattel

Answer 3

Personal property or ‘personalty’

Question 4

deed

Answer 4

A written instrument that transfers an interest in real property when signed by grantor and delivered to the grantee. (Cannot be used to transfer personal property.)

Question 5

hereditaments

Answer 5

All of the corporeal (tangible) and incorporeal (intangible) attributes of real estate that can be inherited.

Question 6

highest and best use

Answer 6

The use of land that will preserve its utility and yield a net income in the form of rent that forms the highest present value of the land. (Changes with time and determined by an appraiser.)

Question 7

immobility

Answer 7

A PHYSICAL characteristic of land describing the impossibility of relocating land from one place to another.

Question 8

improvements

Answer 8

Structures, walls, roads, and so on. (Anything artificially attached to land that betters the use of the land - considered to be real property.)

Question 9

indestructibility

Answer 9

A PHYSICAL characteristic of land meaning that land is a permanent commodity and cannot be destroyed. ‘Permanence’.

Question 10

land use controls

Answer 10

Regulation of land use by planning, zoning, building codes, environmental control laws, etc..

Question 11

nonhomogeneity

Answer 11

Or ‘uniqueness’, a PHYSICAL characteristic of land describing that land as a unique commodity. (The reason for ‘Specific Performance’)

Question 12

personalty

Answer 12

Personal property or ‘chattel’.

Question 13

real estate

Answer 13

Land and everything that is permanently attached to land. Interchangeable with the terms real property and realty.

Question 14

real property

Answer 14

Land and everything permanently attached to land, including all rights and interest in the land (bundle of rights.)

Question 15

realty

Answer 15

Land and everything permanently attached to land. Interchangeable with the terms real estate and real property.

Question 16

REALTOR

Answer 16

A registered trademark of the National Association of REALTORS. (Separate from the Real Estate Commission.)

Question 17

scarcity

Answer 17

An ECONOMIC characteristic of land. Land is a commodity that has a fixed supply base and cannot be produced. A short supply in comparison with demand.

Question 18

situs

Answer 18

Location of land. Has the greatest effect on property value. (Factors in societal and economic factors.)

Question 19

specific performance

Answer 19

An instruction of a court requiring a defaulting party to a contract to buy and sell real property to carry out his or her obligations under the contract. (The property is the only acceptable ‘performance’ of the contract due to the nonhomogeneity or uniqueness.)

Question 20

tenements

Answer 20

Land and all corporeal (tangible) and incorporeal (intangible) rights in land.