What Does Real Estate Include?

Real estate has been one of the major pillars on which economies are built. With the market crash, a lot of people lost their jobs and properties they had worked so hard to acquire were suddenly left without a roof over their heads. The number of foreclosures across the country has also escalated to a level not seen since the 80’s.

Real estate today is land consisting of the buildings and land on it, plus its accompanying natural resources like water, plants or minerals; immovable property of that sort; equity vested in the property, structures or housing in general, including buildings and houses. When it comes to real estate, land is the common denominator and a lot of people will readily agree on that. The other things that make up this field are improvements to the land, making it more productive and/or useful, and the upkeep of the land. All of these different categories are important and play an important role in the economy and the way people live.

Improvements to real estate property are something that everyone must do whether you own the land or not. There are many different types of improvements you can make and most of them are non-economic, although there are a few that are. These include things like installing better septic tanks or sewer systems and improvements to the exterior and landscaping of buildings. Some improvements are actually considered to be economic and help drive the economy. One example would be adding another building attached to an existing building or putting in a road or bridge.

There are many non-economic but very useful improvements to real estate as well. One such example is improving the sewer systems of a town or city. This can help keep people from catching diseases from poor sanitation because the pipes are usually clogged with human waste. Other things to improve include road and bridge conditions and ensuring that town or cities are being kept up on tax assessments. Improving roads is also a very useful thing to do because roads are one of the main ways people get to and from work and without good roads, businesses can’t function properly.

In addition to the real estate assets that are part of the overall portfolio of a real estate investor, another important category of asset class to consider is the intangible assets. These include things like trademarks, information, titles, and patents. Usually a person will add these types of assets when buying a piece of property because they want to protect them legally. By doing so, they are protecting themselves from a possible infringement on their intellectual rights and/or from having the use of their property is infringed upon. Adding these kinds of intangible assets to real estate is considered to be quite beneficial and can often add a substantial amount of value to the overall investment.

Real estate includes a wide variety of different kinds of assets. Most investors focus only on one or two of these categories when they are investing in real property and it’s very important to keep these two groups separate in terms of what kinds of deals they make. A lot of investors work with either residential or commercial property, but they can expand their portfolio by looking into properties that fall into one or more of these categories.