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Frequently asked questions about residential real estate

What Constitutes Residential Real Estate? What Are Some Common Issues Handled In These Types Of Cases?

Residential real estate is the property that is not used for any commercial activity. It’s where you live – where you eat, sleep and raise your family.

In the broader sense, it is generally defined as any noncommercial property or any property that people would live in that is between one and four units in size. A quadplex, a four-unit house or a four-unit building would be the largest to be considered residential. Anything of five units or more, you’re going to be in a commercial world because then it’s more of an apartment building, it’s not just a residential home.

The issues that you would encounter with residential are very similar to commercial, but they’re usually on a smaller scale. However, you can still run into the same title issues. All of those issues with ownership and transferring a title person to person and liens and mortgages etc. go along with the ownership of real estate.

Again, as far as issues and scope to the commercial world, just on a much smaller scale, if you buy a house that’s a rental property and then you have to worry about maybe a few tenants. However, if you buy an apartment building, you might have to worry about four hundred tenants. So, again it’s the same concept, same issues, just a smaller scale.

Do Most Residential Real Estate Cases Involve Purchasing A Residence Or Do They Involve Second Homes As Well?

Most of the residential transactions that the law firm of Brian M. Douglas & Associates handles are the buying or selling of residential real estate. However, that could be a second home or it could be an investor. It could be a homebuilder developing a sub-division or selling a house.

From there, it’s broken down into whatever the person is buying it for or whatever the seller is trying to do with it. If it’s a homebuilder, they are building houses and trying to sell them to people, if they are an investor, they are buying and withholding them or they are buying and flipping them. It could be the case of a second home, where someone’s buying it for a vacation home or a beach house or a second residence to live in part of the year.

When you look at the residential transaction business, in the broadest terms, it comes down to the buying and selling of real estate and then the mortgaging of that. People refinance their house. If interest rates are low, you can plan to go refinance your house and save money. You’re not selling your house but you are changing the financing on it. Whenever there is financing involved, 99% of the time, you will bring an attorney in to handle it. The attorney will help make sure the title is clear and to issue title insurance and to make sure everything was done properly.

If you have Questions About Residential Real Estate, call the law office of Attorney Brian Douglas for an initial consultation at (770) 933-9009 and get the information and legal answers you’re seeking.