A roommate is a person with whom one shares a living facility such as a room or dormitory without being family or romantically involved. Similar terms include dormmate, suitemate, housemate, or flatmate. Flatmate is the term most commonly used in New Zealand, when referring to the rental of an unshared room within any type of dwelling. Another similar term is sharemate. A sharehome is a model of household in which a group of usually unrelated people reside together. The term generally applies to people living together in rental properties rather than in properties in which any resident is an owner occupier. In the UK, the term "roommate" means a person living in the same bedroom, whereas in the United States and Canada, "roommate" and "housemate" are used interchangeably regardless whether a bedroom is shared, although it is common in US universities that having a roommate implies sharing a room together. This article uses the term "roommate" in the US sense of a person one shares a residence with who is not a relative or significant other. The informal term for roommate is roomie, which is commonly used by university students.
Renting, also known as hiring or letting, is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property owned by another. A gross lease is when the tenant pays a flat rental amount and the landlord pays for all property charges regularly incurred by the ownership. An example of renting is equipment rental. Renting can be an example of the sharing economy.
Owner-occupancy or home-ownership is a form of housing tenure where a person, called the owner-occupier, owner-occupant, or home owner, owns the home in which they live. This home can be house, apartment, condominium, or a housing cooperative. In addition to providing housing, owner-occupancy also functions as a real estate investment.
Sexual misconduct is an umbrella term for any misconduct of a sexual nature that is of lesser offense than felony sexual assault, particularly where the situation is normally non-sexual and therefore unusual for sexual behavior, or where there is some aspect of personal power or authority that makes sexual behavior inappropriate. A common theme, and the reason for the term misconduct, is that these violations occur during work or in a situation of a power imbalance. It is a legal concept to frame offenses which are non-criminal but nevertheless violating of another person's personal boundary in the area of sexuality and intimate personal relationships.
An estate agent is a person or business that arranges the selling, renting, or management of properties and other buildings. An agent that specialises in renting is often called a letting or management agent. Estate agents are mainly engaged in the marketing of property available for sale, and a solicitor or licensed conveyancer is used to prepare the legal documents. In Scotland, however, many solicitors also act as estate agents, a practice that is rare in England and Wales.
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant. When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner. The term landlady may be used for female owners, and lessor may be used regardless of gender. The manager of a UK pub, strictly speaking a licensed victualler, is referred to as the landlord/lady.
An executor is someone who is responsible for executing, or following through on, an assigned task or duty. The feminine form, executrix, may sometimes be used. The role of an executor should not be confused with that of an executioner, a person who carries out a death sentence ordered by a government or other legal authority.
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the lessee (user) to pay the lessor (owner) for use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial or business equipment is also leased.
A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a leasehold estate is typically considered personal property.
Real estate appraisal, property valuation or land valuation is the process of developing an opinion of value, for real property. Real estate transactions often require appraisals because they occur infrequently and every property is unique, unlike corporate stocks, which are traded daily and are identical. The location also plays a key role in valuation. However, since property cannot change location, it is often the upgrades or improvements to the home that can change its value. Appraisal reports form the basis for mortgage loans, settling estates and divorces, taxation, and so on. Sometimes an appraisal report is used to establish a sale price for a property.
A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a company, a brand, or public figure – especially a celebrity – or for a work such as a book, film, or album. Publicists are public-relations specialists who have the role to maintain and represent the images of individuals, rather than representing an entire corporation or business. Publicists are also hired by public figures who want to maintain or protect their image. Publicists brand their clients by getting magazine, TV, newspaper, and website coverage. Most top-level publicists work in private practice, handling multiple clients.
Property management is the operation, control, and oversight of real estate management indicates a need to be cared for, monitored and accountability given for its useful life and condition. This is much akin to the role of management in any business.
A property manager or estate manager is a person or firm charged with operating a real estate property for a fee, when the owner is unable to personally attend to such details, or is not interested in doing so. The property may be individual title owned or it may be owned under sectional title, share block company owned and may be registered for residential, commercial office and retail or industrial use. In 2006, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Office of Occupational Statistics reported that there were 329,000 property managers employed in the United States, with the number expected to grow to by 50,000 by 2016.
A rental agreement is a contract, usually written, between the owner of a property and a renter who desires to have temporary possession of the property as distinguished from a lease which is more typically for a fixed term. As a minimum, the agreement identifies the parties, the property, the term of the rental, and the amount of rent for the term. The owner of the property may be referred to as the lessor and the renter as the lessee.
In Scotland a factor is a person or firm charged with superintending or managing properties and estates—sometimes where the owner or landlord is unable to or uninterested in attending to such details personally, or in tenements in which several owners of individual flats contribute to the factoring of communal areas.
A locum, or locum tenens, is a person who temporarily fulfills the duties of another; the term is especially used for a physician or clergyman. For example, a locum tenens physician is a physician who works in the place of the regular physician when that physician is absent, or when a hospital or practice is short staffed. These professionals are still governed by their respective regulatory bodies, despite the transient or freelance nature of their positions.
A building superintendent or building supervisor is a term used in the United States and Canada to refer to a manager responsible for repair and maintenance in a residential building. They are the first point of contact for residents of the building.
Rent-to-own, also known as rental-purchase, is a type of legally documented transaction under which tangible property, such as furniture, consumer electronics, motor vehicles, home appliances, real property, and engagement rings, is leased in exchange for a weekly or monthly payment, with the option to purchase at some point during the agreement.
An electronic version of the real estate industry, internet real estate is the concept of publishing housing estates for sale or rent, and for consumers seeking to buy or rent a property. Often, internet real estates are operated by landlords themselves. However, there are few exceptions where an online real estate agent would exist, still dealing via the web and often stating a flat-fee and not a commission based on percentage of total sales. Internet real estate surfaced around 1999 when technology advanced and statistics prove that more than 1 million homes were sold by the owners themselves in just America, in 2000. Some of the prime internet real estate platforms include Zillow, Trulia, Yahoo! Real Estate, Redfin and Realtor.com.
NAEA Propertymark is a membership organisation for estate agents (called real estate brokers in the US). It is based in and covers the UK. It is the UK's leading professional body for estate agents. Its members practice across all aspects of property in the UK, including residential and commercial sales and letting, property management, business transfer, auctioneering and land.
