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The American Measurement Standard is an authoritative measurement standard for use with single-family dwellings. The AMS 2020 edition is a voluntary guide developed for the measurement, calculation, and communication of square footage in residential dwellings.
This standard defines eight specific categories for the reporting of all space associated with a residential dwelling. The AMS helps to establish common and logical definitions of "finished square footage" and "gross living area." The methodology of the American Measurement Standard was compiled and edited by a consensus of real estate professionals including real estate agents, appraisers, assessors, home builders and architects, and is based on the exterior dimensions of a dwelling. The AMS contains over three times more specific home measurement details than any other square footage guideline and includes numerous illustrations and examples. The standard provides acceptable square footage calculations for use in residential mortgage appraisals, and provides acceptable measurements for mortgage lenders. The principles and practices detailed in the standard have been used for generations in professional appraisal reports.
A building or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for a wide number of factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, land prices, ground conditions, specific uses, prestige, and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the term building compare the list of nonbuilding structures.
This aims to be a complete list of the articles on real estate.
A property tax is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is an American trade association for those who work in the real estate industry. It has over 1.4 million members, making it one of the biggest trade associations in the USA including NAR's institutes, societies, and councils, involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. The organization holds a U.S. trademark over the term "realtor", limiting the use of the term to its members. NAR also functions as a self-regulatory organization for real estate brokerage. The organization is headquartered in Chicago.
A real estate agent, referred to often as a real estate broker, is a person who represents sellers or buyers of real estate or real property. While a broker may work independently, an agent usually works under a licensed broker to represent clients. Brokers and agents are licensed by the state to negotiate sales agreements and manage the documentation required for closing real estate transactions. Buyers and sellers are generally advised to consult a licensed real estate professional for a written definition of an individual state's laws of agency.
Market value or OMV is the price at which an asset would trade in a competitive auction setting. Market value is often used interchangeably with open market value, fair value or fair market value, although these terms have distinct definitions in different standards, and differ in some circumstances.
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.
In economics, hedonic regression, also sometimes called hedonic demand theory, is a revealed preference method for estimating demand or value. It decomposes the item being researched into its constituent characteristics, and obtains estimates of the contributory value for each. This requires that the composite good can be reduced to its constituent parts and that those resulting parts are in some way valued by the market. Hedonic models are most commonly estimated using regression analysis, although some more generalized models such as sales adjustment grids are special cases which do not.
A real-estate bubble or property bubble is a type of economic bubble that occurs periodically in local or global real estate markets, and it typically follows a land boom. A land boom is a rapid increase in the market price of real property such as housing until they reach unsustainable levels and then declines. This period, during the run-up to the crash, is also known as froth. The questions of whether real estate bubbles can be identified and prevented, and whether they have broader macroeconomic significance, are answered differently by schools of economic thought, as detailed below.
Closing costs are fees paid at the closing of a real estate transaction. This point in time called the closing is when the title to the property is conveyed (transferred) to the buyer. Closing costs are incurred by either the buyer or the seller.
A commercial mortgage is a mortgage loan secured by commercial property, such as an office building, shopping center, industrial warehouse, or apartment complex. The proceeds from a commercial mortgage are typically used to acquire, refinance, or redevelop commercial property.
Highest and best use is a concept in real estate appraisal that originated with early economists such as Irving Fisher, who conceptualized the idea of maximum productivity.
The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), is a United States federal law enacted in the wake of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.
A house price index (HPI) measures the price changes of residential housing as a percentage change from some specific start date. Methodologies commonly used to calculate an HPI are hedonic regression (HR), simple moving average (SMA), and repeat-sales regression (RSR).
A mortgage loan or simply mortgage, in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any purpose while putting a lien on the property being mortgaged. The loan is "secured" on the borrower's property through a process known as mortgage origination. This means that a legal mechanism is put into place which allows the lender to take possession and sell the secured property to pay off the loan in the event the borrower defaults on the loan or otherwise fails to abide by its terms. The word mortgage is derived from a Law French term used in Britain in the Middle Ages meaning "death pledge" and refers to the pledge ending (dying) when either the obligation is fulfilled or the property is taken through foreclosure. A mortgage can also be described as "a borrower giving consideration in the form of a collateral for a benefit (loan)".
An Automated Valuation Model (AVM) is a system for the valuation of real estate that provides a value of a specified property at a specified date, using mathematical modelling techniques in an automated manner. AVMs are Statistical Valuation Methods and divide into Comparables Based AVMs and Hedonic Models. Other Statistical Valuation Methods are House Price Indices and Single Parameter Valuations.
The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization(MISMO) is a not-for-profit, wholly owned subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) responsible for developing standards for exchanging information and conducting business in the U.S. mortgage finance industry. It has more than 175 member organizations representing a cross-section of the residential and commercial mortgage industries.
A broker's price opinion (BPO) is a report that is performed by a licensed real estate agent, broker or appraiser. A BPO is an informal appraisal. It is similar to doing a CMA but most times the real estate professional gets paid to do a BPO. A BPO can be either an exterior drive-by or a full interior report. When doing a BPO, the real estate professional researches the subject property, takes pictures of it, investigates the neighborhood, as well as retrieve six comparable properties in their MLS. The final BPO is used to support their professional opinion that will help determine the potential selling price or estimated value of a property.
The House Energy Rating (HER) or House Energy Rating Scheme (HERS) are worldwide standard measures of comparison by which one can evaluate the energy efficiency of a new or an existing building. The comparison is generally done for energy requirements for heating and cooling of indoor space. The energy is the main criterion considered by any international building energy rating scheme but there are some other important factors such as production of greenhouse gases emission, indoor environment quality, cost efficiency and thermal comfort, which are considered by some schemes. Basically, the energy rating of a residential building provides detailed information on the energy consumption and the relative energy efficiency of the building. Hence, HERs inform consumers about the relative energy efficiency of homes and encourage them to use this information in making their house purchase decision.
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, buildings or housing in general. In terms of law, real is in relation to land property and is different from personal property while estate means the "interest" a person has in that land property.
Approved for use by the Mississippi Appraisal Board. January 2019.
Part of the course ANSI, Home Measurement & the Power of Price-Per-Square-Foot. www.Appraserelearning.com 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20081024100642/http://www.realtor.org/rmonews_and_commentary/opinion/0809commentarysquarefootage