Real property or what most people refer to as real estate refers to the dominion or power to use, control, and disposition where one can legally exercise power over land. One way to distinguish between the many forms of property is between real property or real estate and personal property. The term real property is generally used to refer to land. The face of the earth is considered land. Real estate usually includes business and residential properties. It is also usually sold by a realtor or most directly by the person who owns the real property. In the United States, real estate is considered legal designation, and is possibly subject to legislation and laws. Although real property is synonymous with real property, in some cases real estate refers to the land and fixtures together which is different from real property. Real property is normally set to be immovable property. Real estate is simply a broad term used to elaborate on real property which can be related to land, house, condo, and even an office building or factory.
The law refers to the word “real” to a thing which is tremendously different from a person. Therefore the law makes the clear distinction between real property which is land and anything affixed to it and personal property which includes clothing, furniture, and money. The oldest tracking of the term “real estate” has been preserved in historical records in 1666.
Thanks to the federal home purchase tax credits and continuing close to record-low mortgage rates, housing and real estate businesses are being helped. There is only positive news for people in that sector from a glimpse of last week’s unfinalized home sales report which came from the National Association of Realtors. The report displayed a trend where awaiting contracts jumped for the third straight month. It has increased six percent from April and a huge 22 percent higher than last year. With the exception of the South, every region had sizable gains in contracts heading for settlement. Completed contracts in the Northeast were up by almost 30 percent for the month. In the West, it rose a good eight percent and the even the Midwest gained about 4 percent. The South’s forthcoming sales decreased by one percent from the previous month, but they are still above 31 percent from where they were 12 months prior.
According the the latest Clear Capital Home Data Index, real estate prices are moving with an upward curve. The Clear Capital Home Data Index tracks real property price movements in the thousands of very local markets. They also found prices increased by 6.8 percent year over year. Many economists say that consumer confidence is what’s powering all these sales and growing price numbers. There is a good sign for consumer’s disposition to spend money. It’s not always just good news in real estate, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s index of new loan applications decreased for the third straight week and unfortunately at its lowest in 14 years.