How Real Estate is Real

Real estate is real. That is one of the reasons I have enjoyed real estate for so many years: you can touch it, visit it, improve it, paint it, and of course, live in it.  Real estate is not some intangible investment for which you might get a paper proving ownership. Particularly for your primary residence, but even for investment properties like rentals or second homes, you don't just know about it once a month when you get a statement from your financial institution. To me, this all defines real.

It is worth understanding, I think, a few key terms with respect to real estate.

1. Land: The concept of owning land might seem obvious, but when you own land, you typically own not only the surface of the earth's crust but the soil and other minerals and materials from the outline of your land down to the center of the earth. You also own the air rights going straight up into the sky above your land. It gets a little more complicated if you or a previous owner has assigned some of the rights to those minerals or soil or the airspace above your land through an easement. But that is more Real Estate 201 than 101.  What this means generally is that, subject to local laws and regulations, you can build things upon, or improve, your land and you can grow things in that land and you can use the space above your land.

2. Real Estate: Real estate includes your land as well as any improvements or other human-made physical additions. Improvements include homes, sheds, garages, sidewalks, driveways, paths, sewer lines, and the like. Note that not all improvements allow exclusive right of use (like sidewalks and sewers), but if those are on your property, they are part of your real estate.

3. Real Property: Now it gets even more interesting, because real property includes land plus improvements plus your bundle of legal rights to the real estate. The nuances of these bundles of rights morph into Real Estate 301, but it is useful to know what they are at their core.

A. right of possession
B. right to control the property within the framework of the law (e.g., the right to forbid use of your property)
C. right of quiet enjoyment (meaning, to use it legally)
D. right of exclusion (to restrict access through installation of a fence)
E. right of disposition, to sell, will, transfer, or otherwise dispose of or encumber (restrict) your property

I am happy to explain any of these concepts in detail upon request.