Real Estate infocus: Residential real estate

Mansion

A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives (through Old French) from the Latin word mansiō ("act of remaining or staying", a verbal noun from manere "to remain" or "to stay".) In the Roman Empire, a mansio was an official stopping place on a Roman road, or via, where cities sprang up, and where the villas of provincial officials came to be placed. The Scots word "manse" originally defined a property large enough for the Minister of the parish to maintain himself, but a mansion is no longer self-sustaining in this way (compare a Roman or medieval villa). 'Manor' comes from the same root — territorial holdings granted to a lord who would remain there — hence it can be seen how the word 'Mansion' came to have its meaning.

The Breakers, in Newport, Rhode Island, The Breakers in Rhode Island is a fine example, as is the nearby, but completely different, Watts Sherman House, and is one of the most famous 19th century mansions in the United States.

Villa

A villa was originally an upper-class country house, though since its origins in Roman times the idea and function of a villa has evolved considerably. After the fall of the Republic, a villa became a small, fortified farming compound, gradually re-evolving through the Middle Ages into luxurious, upper-class country homes. In modern parlance it can refer to a specific type of detached suburban dwelling.

Heritage villas, late 19th century, Auckland, New Zealand.

The Albertian Villa Medici in Fiesole: terraced grounds on a sloping site.

Bungalow

A bungalow is a type of single-story house that originated in India. The word derives from the Gujarati word baṅglo, which in turn came from Hindustani baṅglā. It means "Bengali", used elliptically for a "house in the Bengal style. Such houses were traditionally small, only one story, thatched and had a wide veranda. Bungalows today are a type of house that is usually single story or one and a half stories, and can be quite large.

1980s Irish Bungalow. 1980s Irish BungalowThe bungalow is the most common house built in the Irish countryside. In the 1990s though, there has been a decline in the number of bungalows for the more favored 2-storey or dormer bungalows.

One-story bungalow with painted trim, earth-tone shingles. On a per unit area basis (e.g. per square foot or per square metre), bungalows are more expensive to construct than two story houses because a larger foundation and roof area is required for the same living area. The larger foundation will often translate into larger lot size requirements as well. This is why bungalows are typically fully detached from other houses and do not share a common foundation nor party wall: if the homeowner can afford the extra expense of a bungalow relative to a two-story house, they can typically afford to be fully detached as well.

Ranch Bungalow in Palo Alto, California.A ranch bungalow is a bungalow organized so that bedrooms are on one side and

The majority of Chicago Bungalows were built between 1910 and 1940. They were typically constructed from brick (sometimes in decorative patterns) and had one and a half stories. At one point, nearly a third of the houses in the Chicago area were bungalows. One primary difference between the Chicago bungalow and other types is that the gables are parallel to the street, rather than perpendicular. Like many other local homes, Chicago bungalows are relatively narrow, [3] being an average of 20 feet (6.1 m) wide on a standard 25-foot (7.6 m) wide city lot.

The California Bungalow was a widely popular 1 1/2 story variation on the bungalow in America from 1910 to 1925. It was also widely popular in Australia within the period 1910-1940.

Bungalows in Atlanta's Inman Park neighborhood.

Bungalows in the Belmont-Hillsboro neighborhood of Nashville

Bungalows are very convenient for the homeowner in that all living areas are on a single storey and there are no stairs between living areas. A bungalow is well suited to those who are mobility impaired, e.g. the elderly or those in wheelchairs.

Neighborhoods of only bungalows offer more privacy than similar neighborhoods with two-story houses. With bungalows, strategically planted trees and shrubs are usually sufficient to block the view of neighbors. With two-story houses, the extra height requires much taller trees to accomplish the same, and it may not be practical to place such tall trees close to the house to obscure the view from the second floor of the next door neighbor. On the other hand, even closely spaced bungalows make for quite low density neighborhoods, contributing to urban sprawl.

Single-family detached home

There are advantages and disadvantages to single-detached homes. Advantages are that the entire space around the building is private to the owner and family, in most cases (depending on federal, state/provincial and local laws) you can add on to the existing house if more room is needed and there are generally no property management fees such as the ones associated with condominiums and townhomes.

There are also many disadvantages to owning a single-family detached home. All maintenance and repair costs—interior, exterior and everything in between—are at the owner's expense. There is often a lack of amenities such as pools and playgrounds (although some single-detached homes do have these features within the lot or nearby, their owners are commonly required to pay a homeowners fee as those in condos or townhomes).
Landscaping and lawn upkeep costs are at the owner's expense.

A Northern European single-family home in Denmark.

Public Housing

Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by not-for-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing.

Public housing was only built with the blessing of the local government, and projects were almost never built on suburban greenfields , but through regeneration of older neighborhoods. The destruction of tenements and eviction of their low-income residents consistently created problems in nearby neighborhoods with "soft" real estate markets.

Houses, apartments or other residential units are usually subsidized on a rent-geared-to-income (RGI) basis. Some communities have now embraced a mixed income, with both assisted and market rents, when allocating homes as they become available.

Cohousing

A cohousing community is a type of intentional community composed of private homes with full kitchens, supplemented by extensive common facilities. A cohousing community is planned, owned and managed by the residents, groups of people who want more interaction with their neighbours. Common facilities vary but usually include a large kitchen and dining room where residents can take turns cooking for the community. Other facilities may include a laundry, pool, child care facilities, offices, internet access, game room, TV room, tool room or a gym. Through spatial design and shared social and management activities, cohousing facilitates intergenerational interaction among neighbors, for the social and practical benefits. There are also economic and environmental benefits to sharing resources, space and items.

The Sunward Cohousing community illustrating greenspace preservation, tightly clustered housing, and parking on periphery, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2003.

Design:

Because each cohousing community is planned in its context, a key feature of this model is its flexibility to the needs and values of its residents and the characteristics of the site. Cohousing can be urban, suburban or rural. The physical form is typically compact but varies from low-rise apartments to townhouses to clustered detached houses.

They tend to keep cars to the periphery which promotes walking through the community and interacting with neighbors as well as increasing safety for children at play within the community. Shared green space is another characteristic, whether for gardening, play, or places to gather.

When more land is available than is needed for the physical structures, the structures are usually clustered closely together, leaving as much of the land as possible "open" for shared use. This aspect of cohousing directly addresses the growing problem of suburban sprawl.

Single-family detached home

A single-family detached home, or single-family home or detached house for short, also variously known as a single-detached dwelling or separate house (see below), is a free-standing residential building. 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 in North American English or a garden in British English. Garages can also be found on most lots. In older homes, they are typically detached, standing as a separate building, either near a driveway or facing an alley in urban areas. Newer homes in North America favor attached garages, often facing the street, as most recent developments do not include alleys.

A sample floor plan of a single-detached home

Common Single-family homes in the United States and Canada

Duflex House

A duplex house is a dwelling comprising two units either side-by-side or on two different floors. The former often looks like two houses put together, sharing a wall (compare semi-detached); the latter usually appears as a townhouse, but with two different entrances.

The term "duplex" can also be extended to three-unit and four-unit buildings, or they can be referred to with specific terms such as triplex and fourplex or quadplex.[1] Because of the flexibility of the term, the line between an apartment building and a duplex is somewhat blurred, with apartment buildings tending to be bigger, while duplexes are usually the size of a normal house.

A duplex may be purchased a single piece of real estate, or there can be separate titles for each unit. The latter is more common with semi-detached buildings where the units only share a common party wall, however it is possible for units of a duplex (or triplex or fourplex) to be owned by different owners.

This is an example of a common 20th Century duplex home built in New England.

Condominium

A condominium, or condo, is a form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate (usually of an apartment house) is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights associated with the individual ownership and controlled by the association of owners that jointly represent ownership of the whole piece. Colloquially, the term is often used to refer to the unit itself in place of the word "apartment".

A condominium may be simply defined as an "apartment" that the tenant "owns" as opposed to rents.

Aqua waterfront condos in Long Beach, California

The interior of a loft condominium

A historic mansion converted into luxury condominiums in Chicago

Terrace Houses

In architecture and city planning, a terrace(d) or row house or townhouse (though the latter term can also refer to patio houses) is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls. The first and last of these houses is called an end terrace, and is often larger than those houses in the middle.

The terrace house has housed different parts of the social spectrum in western society. Originally associated with the working class, in modern times, historical and reproduction terraces have been widely associated with the process of gentrification.