Real Estate

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The legal term for the right to occupy a redidential dwelling is known as the housing tenure. Types of housing tenure include tenancy, owner occupancy, condominiums (individually parceled properties in a single building), housing cooperative, public housing, and squatting. Variants include timeshares and cohousing.

Residences are 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 categories in the United States include:

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 (often called a townhouse or rowhouse) - A number of single or multi-unit buildings in a continuous row with shared walls and no intervening space.

* Condominium - a building or complex, similar to apartments, owned by individuals. Common grounds are jointly owned and shared. There are townhouse or rowhouse style condominiums as well.

Semi-detached dwellings
* Duplex - Two units with one shared wall.
* Single-family detached home
* Portable dwellings
* Mobile homes - Potentially a full-time residence which can be (might not in practice be) movable on wheels.
* Houseboats - A floating home

The size of an apartment or house is described in square feet. This includes the area of "living space", excluding the garage and other non-living spaces.

It can also be described more roughly by the number of rooms.

* 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 also common. (A bedroom is defined as a room with a closet for clothes storage.)

Real Estate Mortgages
As of May 1, 2009, all residential loans made by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must use appraisal management companies to arrange their real estate appraisals. Lenders and mortgage brokers may no longer contract directly with real estate appraisers. There is a new Independent Valuation Protection Institute to oversee the process.