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What Exactly is Real Estate? A Basic Guide for the First-time homebuyer

Real estate is a legal term that encompasses land along with improvements to the land, such as buildings, fences, wells and other site improvements that are fixed in location usually immovable.  Real estate is often considered synonymous with real property (sometimes called realty), in contrast with personal property (sometimes called chattel or personalty under chattel law or personal property law).

However, in some situations the term "real estate" refers to the land and fixtures together, as distinguished from "real property," referring to ownership of land and appurtenances, including anything of a permanent nature such as structures, trees, minerals, and the interest, benefits, and inherent rights thereof. Real property is typically considered to be Immovable property The terms real estate and real property are used primarily in common law, while civil law jurisdictions refer instead to immovable property.

Residential real estate
The legal arrangement for the right to occupy a dwelling is known as the housing tenure. Types of housing tenure include owner occupancy, Tenancy, housing cooperative, condominiums, public housing, squatting, and cohousing.

Residences can be classified by, if, and how they are connected to neighboring residences and land. Different types of housing tenure can be used for the same physical type. For example, connected residents might be owned by a single entity and leased out, or owned separately with an agreement covering the relationship between units and common areas and concerns.

Major physical real estate categories in North America and Europe include:

• Single-family detached home
• Attached / multi-unit dwellings
• Apartment - An individual unit in a multi-unit building. The boundaries of the apartment are generally defined by a perimeter of locked or lockable doors. Often seen in multi-story apartment buildings.
• Multi-family house - Often seen in multi-story detached buildings, where each floor is a separate apartment or unit.
  Terraced house (a.k.a. townhouse or rowhouse) - A number of single or multi-unit buildings in a continuous row with shared walls and no intervening space.
• Condominium - Building or complex, similar to apartments, owned by individuals. Common grounds are owned and shared jointly. There are townhouse or rowhouse style condominiums as well.
• Semi-detached dwellings
• Duplex - Two units with one shared wall.
• Portable dwellings
• Mobile homes - Potentially a full-time residence which can be (might not in practice be) movable on wheels.
• Houseboats - A floating home
• Tents - Usually very temporary, with roof and walls consisting only of fabric-like material.

Real Estate Terminology
The size of an apartment or house can be described in square feet or meters. In the United States, this includes the area of "living space", excluding the garage and other non-living spaces. Thus you will typically have two figures when looking at purchasing a home, one being a number of square feet under air and a number of total square feet. The "square meters" figure of a house in Europe may report the total area of the walls enclosing the home, thus including any attached garage and non-living spaces, which makes it important to inquire what kind of surface definition has been used.

A home can be described more roughly by the number of rooms it contains. This is often a count of bedrooms and bathrooms included in the home.  If there are any additional areas of living space other than a "living room" or kitchen they are also usually noted in addition to bathrooms and bedrooms.  These rooms may appear as a loft or family room and in some cases are referred to as a bonus room or other.  Garages are usually mentioned seperatly and are described byt the number of vehicles or cars they can accomodate. (A typical home description appears like follows: 3 Bedroom, 2.5 Bath Home with a Loft and 2 car garage.) A studio apartment has a single bedroom with no living room (possibly a separate kitchen). A one-bedroom apartment has a living or dining room separate from the bedroom. Two bedroom, three bedroom, and larger units are common.

Some other basic Real Estate terms include a bedroom which is defined as a room with a closet for clothes storage and a Half Bath (1/2 bath) which typically denotes a bathroom without a shower or tub.