Fsbo

Single-Family Home: A residential property on a single lot designed for the use of one family. Most single-family homes are built on lots larger than the structure itself, adding an area surrounding the house, which is commonly called a yard.

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Multi-Family Homes: Multi-Family Residences consist of duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes.
A duplex house is a dwelling comprised of two units, usually side-by-side, but sometimes on two different floors.

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Townhouse - 3 or more houses in a row sharing a “party” wall with its adjacent neighbor. It’s a single-family dwelling unit constructed in a series or group of attached units with property lines separating such units. A townhouse is like a house in that the owner owns both the structure and the land on which it sits; but it is not free-standing, so “the land on which it sits” is limited to the front and back yards. Townhouses are connected to one another in a row, and are usually two or three stories tall. It is important to note that townhouse refers to the type of house and not to the type of ownership. The ownership responsibility in a townhouse (townhome) is the same as for a house.

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Condominium – a condominium or suite of rooms designed for dwelling most usually similar to an apartment. A condominium is usually owned and occupied by the same person, as differentiated from an apartment which is usually owned by one party (a landlord) and occupied by another (a tenant). Condominium actually refers to actually type of ownership. With ownership, the condominium owner also shares tenancy with other units owners in the common areas, such as the driveways, parking, elevators, outside hallways, recreation, and landscapes areas that the homeowners association homeowners. A majority of states have adopted statutes to cover the issues that are involved with development, construction, management, and taxation of condominium projects.

Like townhouses, condominiums are attached to one another. If you own a condo, you do not own the land surrounding your living space. A condo owner owns only the unit itself, which is taxed as an individual entity, and sometimes a percentage of the common areas of the community. It is important to note that condominium (condo) refers only to type of ownership and is NOT a type of house.

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Co-op – the terms ‘co-op’ and ‘cooperative,’ are short for ‘cooperative housing project.’ A housing cooperative is formed when people join with each other on a democratic basis to own or control the housing and/or related community facilities in which they live. Usually they do this by forming a not-for-profit cooperative corporation. Each month they simply pay an amount that covers their share of the operating expenses of their cooperative corporation. The main distinction between a housing co-op and other forms of homeownership is that in a housing co-op you don’t directly own real estate. But if you don’t own real estate, what exactly are you buying? You are buying shares or a membership in a cooperative housing corporation.

Cooperatives were in existence and common before the condominium scheme of ownership was fully developed in the United States. They were especially common in New York City and the northeast. The day-to-day life in a condo or a co-op is much the same and the typical resident usually wouldn’t notice any difference.

The key difference between a condo and a co-op: A condominium owner actually owns the apartment in fee simple, like any other homeowner, and owns an undivided interest in the common areas like parking lots, recreations areas, lobbies and hallways. Generally, a condo is considered real property and a cooperative is considered intangible personal property.

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Vacation Home – An occasional-use property, often in a resort area (ski, sun, ocean), which may be rented out by the owner to other vacationers while not in use .

If your own personal use amounts to more than 14 days a year, or more than 10% of the number of days the home is rented out, whichever is longer, the house is considered your personal residence. If you use it for fewer than 14 days (or less than 10 percent of the time it is rented to others), it’s considered a rental property.

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Mobile Home - a large house trailer that can be connected to utilities and can be parked in one place and used as permanent housing. It may be placed on a permanent or temporary foundation and may contain one room or more.

The primary advantages of mobiles over traditional houses are clear for first time home buyers. It may be the only option, for starters. Then there is the lower initial price, the simpler, cheaper maintenance, lower monthly payments, less property tax, lower insurance cost, and perhaps even faster equity build-up.

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A log cabin is a small house built from logs.

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A farm is an area of land devoted to the production and management of food, either produce or livestock. It is the basic unit in agricultural production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single individual, family, or community, or by a corporation or company. A farm can be a holding of any size from a fraction of a hectare to several thousand hectares.

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A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool.

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A timeshare is a form of vacation property ownership. With timeshares, the use and costs of running the resort are shared among the owners. The majority of timeshares are condominiums or cooperatives at vacation destinations.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 7:48 am and is filed under FSBO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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