September 15 - Public Restrictions on Ownership

There are many general rules associated to property imposed by the government known as public restrictions on property ownership. These include taxation, eminent domain, police powers, and escheat. The most simple of these would be escheat, which simple means that if you do not name a heir after death, the government takes over the estate. Eminent domain is a law which states that the government may forcibly take property for the betterment of the community with just compensation. This can include creating a new school or highways, or even private structures such as the Dallas Cowboy stadium. The justification for private structures is that they bring in more revenue to the community via tax dollars.

The most infamous of all public restrictions of ownership of property would be taxation. Property taxes are usually expresed in millage rates based on a percentage of the assessed value of the land. This value is vastly different from real market values, and can usually be found using the internet. For those curious, you may search for your own homes assessed value in the Brazos county by using the link HERE. If taxes are unable to be paid, the property may be sold at public auctions by the government in order to pay for backed taxes.

A great example of zoning

When planning a city, most of the time a logical "road map" is made in which only certain types of structures are permitted to be built in specified zones. This is known as zoning, and most major cities adopt these policies in order to create a logical, efficient city design. A perfect example of this would be New York which has many zoning restriction in order to restrict building downtown. An example of what happens when zoning doesn't occur would be in Houston, which explain the rather bizarre placement of building sometimes.

September 15 - Private Restrictions on Ownership

You finally land your dream job, and decide to buy the huge house that you dreamed of. When you move to your new property, you decide it is only fitting to bring your horde of goats which have been your families pets since you were a child, only to find out that it is illegal to bring your lovable bunch of pets into the residence. Is it truly possible that it can be illegal to bring pets into your new home? Private property restrictions are restrictions that govern how you may use your own property, and may include restrictions such as not allowing "abnormal" pets such as goats. These restrictions are made by developers, and are used to uphold a certain standards by which the land may be used. This can help retain value in neighborhoods, and increase the overall quality of life in these areas. Another example of property restrictions can be a easement, which allows others to access your property in order to enter their own property if it is landlocked and no other access is available. This is easily seen in the picture below.

September 15 - Real Estate Property Rights and Legal Descriptions

What exactly gives you ownership of a property?  Title gives the owner of the property the ownership rights, but they are conveyed in documents such as the one pictured above as deeds. Deeds convey the property rights from one party to another, and are a written form of title over most property. These rights include air rights, mineral rights, and water rights. The most obvious example of these rights is whether or not you are able to pump oil out of your own land? Well, this can be a complicated matter if you do not know whether or not you have mineral rights or not. These rights let the land owner know the extent of ownership he has over the land, whether he simply owns the land on the surface, or has a fee simple estate which he owns the full bundle of rights with the property in question. This is important to watch out for, as a clever seller may sell the property rights as a partial estate, while keeping the extremely valuable mineral rights to himself during a transaction.

metes and bounds

While deeds convey ownership of land, a legal description is necessary to describe the exact area and location of land in order to give the possessor an exact description of the property owned. There are different types of legal descriptions, the first one being metes and bounds. This is simply a description of the land using metes to convey distances and bounds to indicate directions of the boundaries which enclose a certain piece of land. An example of this can be show in the figure here.

Another example of legal descriptions can be the rectangular survey system, which uses principal meridians and base lines, townships, sections, and recorded plats.

In summary, property can have different rights tied to it known as property rights. These include the air, mineral, and water rights, and can be sold separately in property transactions. The legal description of property is used to show the exact boundaries of property in order to give the owner an idea exactly where the land he owns begins and ends.

September 13 - Why is Real Estate Important?

The first thing that you must ask yourself when you are wondering why real estate is important, is what exactly is real estate? Real estate is property and anything that is permanently attached to it. Real estate plays a vital role in the economy of any nation. All families need a place to live, and real estate is often a large investment made during someones lifetime. As stated in Kimberly Amadeo's article, real estate provides not only wealth and savings for families, but commercial real estate provides jobs and revenue for millions of Americans. Not only is real estate important for commercial uses, but it has many other uses from ranch or agricultural use, to recreational use in parks. 

Today Real estate continues to provide income for the economy, and even business philanthropist Warren Buffet shares the incentive to invest in real estate in the video above. As he states, he would buy "a couple hundred thousand of them" if it was feasible due to them being an attractive investment.

Howdy,

My name is Justin Thomas and I am currently a Senior at Texas A&M University. My major of study is Accounting, and I plan to pursue my masters in Accounting to get my CPA. I am from Waco, Texas, and have a brother who also attends Texas A&M University

View from New Mexico during the winter