Types of apartments

Penthouse apartment
A penthouse apartment or penthouse is an apartment that is on one of the highest floors of an apartment building. Penthouses are typically differentiated from other apartments by luxury features.
In architecture, the term penthouse is used to refer to a structure on the roof a building that is set back from the outer walls. These structures do not occupy the entire roof deck. High-rise buildings will often have penthouse structures enclosing mechanics such as those in an elevator machine room.

Designers and architects recognized the potential in creating living spaces that make use of setbacks. When used as private outdoor terrace spaces, setbacks can allow for significantly larger and more protected spaces than cantilevered balconies. Due to the desirability of this outdoor space, buildings may be designed with such setbacks on more than one of its uppermost levels, to allow apartments on several levels to feature such terraces. Not all penthouses have such terraces, but they are a desired feature. One such space may be divided among several apartments, or one apartment may occupy an entire floor. A penthouse apartments may also provide occupants with private access to the roof space above the apartment, instead of or in addition to terrace space created by an adjacent setback.
A penthouse apartment may have additional exclusive features not found in the majority of apartments in the building, such as a private entrance or elevator, or higher ceilings. In buildings consisting primarily of single level apartments, a penthouse apartment may be distinguished by having two or more levels.
Penthouse apartments are generally expensive, and are often associated with a luxury lifestyle. Thus, those wishing to market or otherwise inflate the prestige of a particular apartment may use the term. The term penthouse is sometimes applied to apartments that are no different than others in a building, other than being on one of the uppermost floors. The term sub-penthouse is sometimes used to describe apartments near the top of a building, when the term penthouse is reserved for the uppermost floor.

Railroad apartment
A railroad apartment is an apartment with a series of rooms that connect to each other in a straight line just like cars on a train. Often, there is an entrance at only one end, so a resident must walk through each room to get to the next, though sometimes there is a narrow hallway.
The term is common in New York City, San Francisco and nearby areas. Railroad apartments are common in brownstone apartment buildings.
A railroad apartment is similar to a shotgun house

Short stay apartment
A Short Stay Apartment is a furnished apartment that is rented for short periods of time, usually days or weeks. They are quickly becoming a preferred alternative to hotels for various reasons. A short stay apartment is a self-contained apartment space which will include a lounge, a bathroom and a kitchen. The apartment layout can vary from one-room studios to various roomed luxury apartments with many bedrooms.
The ability to temporarily own your own apartment offers plenty of freedom for its guests, for example, cooking and sharing a family meal. Many families travelling will often prefer to live together, eating and sleeping in one single apartment, rather than spread out around several hotel rooms.
A short stay apartment is a valid alternative to hotels for groups of people and families, as well as businessmen. Apartments are often available in good locations within city centers. Private villas also can be rented for short stays which are often located in rural areas or even coastal regions.
Quality
Quality of the apartments can vary. Many people who own a second home rent it out for short stays, some use an agency that specialises in renting out apartments, other choose to rent it out themselves, publishing it on websites. Often, agencies offer a higher standard of apartment, realising that people who rent a short stay apartment want comfort and a good standard of furnishing, they also usually offer greater levels of customer service.
Individual owners who manage their own properties may be cheaper, although the furnishing and decoration may not be as high-standard, and there may be little or no customer service during the stay should something occur.
Extended Stays
Business executives increasingly prefer a short stay apartment to hotel rooms. Apartments offer more privacy and freedom, and can be cost-effective. Short stays of more than one month are often called extended-stays. Many apartments come equipped with desks and internet connections, some even provide small offices, designed for business executives on short contracts etc.

High-rise
A high-rise is a tall building or structure. Normally, the function of the building is added, for example high-rise apartment building or high-rise offices.
High-rise buildings became possible with the invention of the elevator (lift) and cheaper, more abundant building materials. Buildings between 75 feet and 491 feet (23 m to 150 m) high are considered high-rises. Buildings taller than 492 feet (150 m) are classified as skycrapers. The average height of a level is around 13 feet (4 m) high, thus a 79 foot (24 m) tall building would comprise 6 floors.
The materials used for the structural system of high-rise buildings are reinforced concrete and steel. Most American style skyscrapers have a steel frame, while residential tower blocks are usually constructed out of concrete.
Although the exact definition is immaterial, various bodies have tried to define what 'high-rise' means:
The International Conference on Fire Safety in High-Rise Buildings defined a high-rise as "any structure where the height can have a serious impact on evacuation"
The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines a high-rise as "a building having many stories".
Massachusetts General Laws define a high-rise as being higher than 70 feet (21 m).
Most building engineers, inspectors, architects and similar professions define a high-rise as a building that's at least 75 feet (23 m).
High-rise structures pose particular design challenges for structural and geotechnical engineers, particularly if situated in a seismically active region or if the underlying soils have geotechnical risk factors such as high compressibility or bay mud. They also pose serious challenges to firefighters during emergencies in high-rise structures. New and old building design, building systems like the building standpipe system, HVAC systems (Heating, Ventilation and Air conditioning), fire sprinkler system and other things like stairwell and elevator evacuations pose significant problems.

Loft apartment
Loft apartments are apartments that are generally built into former industrial buildings. When industrial developments are developed into condominiums instead of apartments, they may be called loft condominiums. The general term warehouse-to-loft conversions may sometimes be used for development of industrial buildings into apartments and condominiums. "Loft-style" may also refer simply to developments where a street-level business occupies the first floor while apartment "lofts" are placed above the first floor.
These dwellings may advertise "exposed brick" and are the two-story equivalent of studio apartments. Loft apartments generally have one open room having the bedroom in a loft while the kitchen and living room comprise the first floor. This style may be chosen for redevelopment of industrial buildings due to the original high-roofed room design of such buildings. Sometimes, loft apartments are one component of municipal urban renewal initiatives that also include renovation of industrial buildings into art galleries and studio space as well as promotion of a new part of the city as an "arts district."
Originally popular with artists, they are now highly sought-after by other bohemians, and the gentrification of the former manufacturing sectors of large cities is now a familiar pattern. One such sector is Manhattan's Meatpacking District. The adoption of the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (2001) in the City of Los Angels (primarily the Arts District) is another example of such legislation to encourage the conversion of no longer economically viable industrial and commercial buildings to luxurious residential loft communities. Such is the demand for these spaces among the well-off that real estate developers have taken to creating ready-made "lofts" in urban areas that are gentrifying or that seem primed to do so. While some of these units are created by developers during the extensive and costly renovation of old buildings, a number of them are included in the floor plans of brand new developments. Both types of pre-fab loft offer wealthy buyers or renters the proximity to urban amenities afforded by traditional lofts, but without the perceived safety risks of living in economically depressed industrial areas. Detractors argue that these ready-made units are neither produced nor consumed in the spirit of traditional loft living.

Garage apartment
A garage apartment is an apartment built within the walls of, or on top of, the garage of a house. The garage may be attached or a separate building from the main house, but will have a separate entrance and may or may not have a communicating door to the main house. A garage apartment is one type of "Accessory Dwelling Unit" or ADU, a term used by architects, urban planners and in zoning ordinance to identify apartments smaller than the main dwelling on one lot or parcel of land. Other examples of ADU's include granny flats, English basements, mother-in-law suites, and auxiliary units.
In the U.S., garage apartments are frequently found in older urban areas, either in secondary buildings designed for such purposes (sometimes called 'guest' or 'carriage' houses), or converted into residential units from their original use. ADUs may be regulated by size, occupancy, lot size, core features (such as kitchens or bathrooms), other building codes and parking allotment.
Many jurisdictions in the U.S. prohibit new construction of or occupancy of ADUs except for relatives

Serviced apartment
serviced apartment is a type of furnished, self-contained apartment designed for short-term stays, which provides amenities for daily use.
Serviced apartments can be less expensive than equivalent hotel rooms. Since the beginning of the boom in cheap international travel and the corresponding increase in the level of sophistication of international travellers, interest in serviced apartments has risen at the expense of the use of hotels for short stays.
Since the dot-com crash, company budgets have been squeezed and since when staying in a hotel one is paying for facilities such as restaurants and bars which are often not needed, many companies have switched their accommodation budgets to serviced apartments

House in multiple occupation

Houses in multiple occupation is a British English term which refers to residential property where ‘common areas’ exist and are shared by more than one household. Common areas may be as significant as bathrooms and kitchenettes, but may also be just stairwells or landings. Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) may be divided up into self-contained flats, bed-sitting rooms or simple lodgings.
Strictly speaking HMOs are not the same as purpose-built flat blocks, since most will have come into being as large buildings in single household occupation.
Some legislation makes a distinction between those buildings occupied mainly on long leases and those where the majority of the occupants are short-term tenants.

Mortgages in real estate

In recent years, many economists have recognized that the lack of effective real estate laws can be a significant barrier to investment in many developing countries. In most societies, rich or poor, a significant fraction of the total wealth is in the form of land and buildings.
In most advanced economies, the main source of capital used by individuals and small companies to purchase and improve land and buildings is mortage loans (or other instruments). These are loans for which the real property itself constitutes collateral. Banks are willing to make such loans at favorable rates in large part because, if the borrower does not make payments, the lender can foreclose by filing a court action which allows them take back the property and sell it to get their money back. For investors, profitability can be enhanced by using an off plan or pre-construction strategy to purchase at a lower price which is often the case in the pre-construction phase of development.
But in many developing countries there is no effective means by which a lender could foreclose, so the mortgage loan industry, as such, either does not exist at all or is only available to members of privileged social classes.

About Apartment

An apartment is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building. Apartments may be owned (by an owner-occupier) or rented (by tenants).
The term "apartment" is favored in North America, whereas the term "flat" is sometimes, but not exclusively used in the United Kingdom and most other English-speaking areas and Commonwealth nations[citation needed] (Canada being a notable exception); in those countries, "apartment" is often used to describe more upmarket flats.
Some apartment-dwellers own their apartments, either as co-ops, in which the residents own shares of a corporation that owns the building or development; or in condominiums, whose residents own their apartments and share ownership of the public spaces. Most apartments are in buildings designed for the purpose, but large older houses are sometimes divided into apartments. The word apartment connotes a residential unit or section in a building. Apartment building owners, lessors, or managers often use the more general word units to refer to apartments. Units can be used to refer to rental business suites as well as residential apartments. When there is no tenant occupying an apartment, the lessor is said to have a vacancy. For apartment lessors, each vacancy represents a loss of income from rent-paying tenants for the time the apartment is vacant (i.e., unoccupied). Lessors' objectives are often to minimize the vacancy rate for their units. The owner of the apartment typically when transferring possession to the occupant(s) gives him/her the key to the apartment entrance door(s) and any other keys needed to live there, such as a common key to the building or any other common areas, and an individual unit mailbox key. When the occupant(s) move out, these keys are typically returned to the owner.

Apartment types and characteristics

Apartments can be classified into several types. One being a Studio, efficiency, bedsit, or bachelor style apartments. These all tend to be the smallest apartments with the cheapest rents in a given area. These kinds of apartment usually consist mainly of a large room which is the living, dining, and bedroom combined. There are usually kitchen facilities as part of this central room, but the bathroom is its own smaller separate room. Moving up from the efficiencies are one-bedroom apartments where one bedroom is a separate room from the rest of the apartment. Then there are two-bedroom, three-bedroom, etc. apartments. Small apartments often have only one entrance/exit. Large apartments often have two entrances/exits, perhaps a door in the front and another in the back. Depending on the building design, the entrance/exit doors may be directly to the outside or to a common area inside, such as a hallway. Depending on location, apartments may be available for rent furnished with furniture or unfurnished into which a tenant usually moves in with their own furniture. Permanent carpeting is often included in an apartment.
Laundry facilities may be found in a common area accessible to all the tenants in the building, or each apartment may have its own facilities. Depending on when the building was built and the design of the building, utilities such as water, heating, and electricity may be common for all the apartments in the building or separate for each apartment and billed separately to each tenant (however, many areas in the US have ruled it illegal to split a water bill among all the tenants, especially if a pool is on the premises). Outlets for connection to telephones are typically included in apartments. Telephone service is optional and is practically always billed separately from the rent payments. Cable television and similar amenities are extra also. Parking space(s), air conditioner, and extra storage space may or may not be included with an apartment. Rental leases often limit the maximum number of people who can reside in each apartment. On or around the ground floor of the apartment building, a series of mailboxes are typically kept in a location accessible to the public and, thus, to the letter-carrier too. Every unit typically gets its own mailbox with individual keys to it. Some very large apartment buildings with a full-time staff may take mail from the mailman and provide mail-sorting service. Near the mailboxes or some other location accessible by outsiders, there may be a buzzer (equivalent to a doorbell) for each individual unit. In smaller apartment buildings such as two- or three-flats, or even four-flats, garbage is often disposed of in trash containers similar to those used at houses. In larger buildings, garbage is often collected in a common trash bin or dumpster. For cleanliness or minimizing noise, many lessors will place restrictions on tenants regarding keeping pets in an apartment.

In some parts of the world, the word apartment is used generally to refer to a new purpose-built self-contained residential unit in a building, whereas the word flat means a converted self-contained unit in an older building. An industrial, warehouse, or commercial space converted to an apartment is commonly called a loft.
When part of a house is converted for the ostensible use of a landlord's family member, the unit may be known as an in-law apartment or granny flat, though these (sometimes illegally) created units are often occupied by ordinary renters rather than family members. In Canada these suites are commonly located in the basements of houses and are therefore normally called basement suites.
In Milwaukee vernacular architecture, a "Polish flat" is an existing small house or cottage that has been lifted up to accommodate the creation of a new basement floor housing a separate apartment, then set down again; thus becoming a modest two-story flat.

About Real Estate

Real estate or immovable property is a legal term (in some jurisdictions) that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings. Real estate (immovable property) is often considered synonymous with real property (also sometimes called realty), in contrast with personal property (also sometimes called chattel or personalty). However, for technical purposes, some people prefer to distinguish real estate, referring to the land and fixtures themselves, from real property, referring to ownership rights over real estate.
The terms real estate and real property are used primarily in common law, while civil law jurisdictions refer instead to immovable property.