When we talk about real estate transactions it is important to use right terminology. Here we will examine and explain few basic terms used is residential housing.

Occupation types
Housing tenure or occupation of a house can result from several legal arrangements. These include owner occupation, condominium housing, rented housing, pubic housing, and cooperative housing, among others. The type of occupancy does not depend on the type of house.

House Types
Residential real estate can be classified according to the physical appearance and their connectedness to neighboring real estate.

The term single family detached house is used to describe exactly that, a physically separated house occupied by a family. Duplex is a semi detached house with two homes usually separated by a single connecting wall.

There are several types of houses which are connected to their neighbors. A flat or an apartment is a single unit in a building with multiple housing units usually called an apartment building. When a multiple story building has separate houses in each floor, it is called a multi family house. A row-house or a townhouse, also called a terrace house, has a row of houses with just the connecting wall to separate them. Condominiums, though some times used to describe apartments, is a legal arrangement whereby the housing units in a apartment building or terrace house are owned separately and other common parts of the building and attached property are held collectively.

In addition to the already described permanent homes people also occupy potentially portable homes such as, mobile homes or trailers, house boats, and tents.

Size of a house is measured in several ways. When it is measured in square feet, the size of the living area, without garage and other such areas, are given in USA. In contrast, in Europe the measure includes the whole area enclosed by the walls. Houses are also measured according to the number of bedrooms.

Property valuation or real estate appraisal is the process by which Market value of a property is estimated.

This is an important part of any financial deal involving property, because unlike with most other products, market prices of real estate cannot be read off the market because no two properties are alike.

Real Estate appraisal in usually carried out by a professional called the land or property valuer or sometimes the surveyor. They need to be licensed or certified by relevant professional associations.

Values 

In addition to Market Value, also called The Fair Value or The Open Market Value, which estimates the price at which the property can be exchanged in a normal market transaction, other values of the property can also be estimated through an appraisal.

For example Liquidation Value or Forced Sale Value will estimate the price of the real estate if it was subjected to liquidation due to bankruptcy or some other reason. “Value in Use” is an estimation of the present value of the cash flow generated from the property. Insurable value is the amount that the real estate can be covered for.

It is important to note that Market Value estimated will not necessarily be the price at which the property will be exchanged. Market Value as stated is estimated for a typical market transaction, while in reality lot of external factors intrude to make each transaction atypical; for instance due to it being tied to other transactions, or due to personal relationships between the parties concerned.