Unit 1: Land, Real Estate, & Real Property

• Land


  Earth's surface to the center of the earth and the airspace above the land including naturally attached objects (e.g. trees and bodies of water)
• Air rights


  Rights to the airspace above land
• Land


  • Includes the subsurface, the minerals and substances that lie below the earth's surface as well as the airspace, the air above earth, all the way to space
  • Federal, state, and local laws govern the use of land areas within and bordering the U.S. (e.g. oceans, lakes, and rivers)
• Define Immobility

  • geographic locations can never be changed, it is fixed and therefore immobile
• Some of the substances of land are removable and topography can be changed, but the geographic locations can never be changed
• Land and the vegetation it supports can be removed to allow for a variety of mining operations, plowed over for a highway or building, or eroded by a flood or dust storm, but the geographic location will still remain
• The permanence of land, coupled with the long-term nature of most improvements to land, such as structures, tends to stabilize investments in real property
• What are the physical characteristics of land?


  Immobility, indestructibility, uniqueness
• Define Uniqueness


  No two parcels of property are exactly the same or in the same location.
• Indestructibility


  The geographic location will still remain, whatever it’s condition.
• Define Land


  Earth‘s surface to the center of the earth and the airspace above the land including naturally attached objects (trees and bodies of water)
• Define Subsurface


  The minerals and substances that lie below the earth‘s surface
• define airspace


  The air above earth, all the way to space.
• Real Estate


  Land plus all human-made improvements to the land that are permanently attached (annexed) to it
• Real Estate


  • Physical
  • Land plus permanent human-made additions
• Improvements to land

  • Building
  • Fence
  • Waterline
  • Sewer pipes
  • Trees
  • Shrubs
  • Other landscaping
• Real Property


  Interests, benefits, & rights that are automatically included in the ownership of real estate
• In many states, the terms real estate and real property are synonymous used to refer to both physical property and rights of ownership
• Other states still make a distinction between physical land and rights of owner
• Bundle of Legal Rights


  • Ownership rights of real property
  • Right of possession
  • Right to control property within framework of law
  • Right of enjoyment (to use property in any legal manner)
  • Right of exclusion (to keep others from entering or using property)
  • Right of disposition (to sell, will, transfer, or dispose of or encumber the property)
• The concept of real property comes from old English law
• In the middle ages, a seller transferred property by giving the purchaser a handful of earth or a bundle of bound sticks from a tree on the property


  After accepting bundle, the purchaser became the owner of the land to which the sticks were attached
• Possession


  • Enjoyment
  • Exclusion
  • Disposition
• Real Property


  A bundle of rights
• Real Estate is synonymous with Real Property
• Rece-Property


  Interests, benefits, and rights that are automatically included in the ownership of real estate
• In many states, the terms real estate and real property are used to refer to both physical property and the rights of ownership
• Other states make a distinction between physical land and the rights of the owner
• Bundle of Legal Rights


  Ownership rights of real property
• Ownership rights of real property

  • Right of possession
  • Right to control property
  • Right of exclusion
  • Right of disposition
• Right of possession


  The right to control property within the framework of the law
• Right to control property


  The right to use property in any legal manner
• Right of exclusion


  The right to keep others from entering or using the property
• Right of disposition


  The right to sell, will, transfer, or dispose of or encumber the property
• History of property ownership

  1. In the middle ages, a seller transferred property by giving the purchaser a handful of earth or a bundle of bound sticks from a tree on the property

  2. By accepting the bundle, the purchaser became the owner of the tree from which the sticks came and the land to which the tree was attached
• Possession


  One of the key elements of real property
• Real Property


  A bundle of rights
• Real Estate


  A bundle of rights
• Key elements of real property


  • Possession
  • Disposition