50 Fun Facts About Real Estate

The word "Realtor" is not a generic term. In the United States it is a trademark of which organisation?

NAR has over 1.5 million members and prefers the word in all capitals; it says never to use it as a synonym for agent.

The Realtors' national association was founded in 1908 in which city?

It began as the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges and did not take its current name until 1972.

America's oldest real estate brokerage, founded in Chicago in 1855, later took which name?

It started life as L. D. Olmsted & Co.

A mortgage in the United States is typically scheduled to amortise over how many years?

In the 1930s most home loans were short three-to-five-year balloon loans; the FHA and Fannie Mae changed that.

What is the term for money held by a neutral third party until the conditions of a sale are met?

Mortgage servicers also keep escrow accounts to pay property tax and insurance on the borrower's behalf.

Fannie Mae was founded in which year, as part of the New Deal, to expand the secondary mortgage market?

By 1933 up to a quarter of the nation's mortgage debt was in default and nearly a quarter of homeowners had lost their homes to banks.

What is the real name of the lender nicknamed Freddie Mac?

It was created in 1970; both it and Fannie Mae were placed in government conservatorship in September 2008.

Which government agency, created by a 1934 Act, insures home loans made by private lenders?

Before it existed, most home loans ran only three to five years with loan-to-value ratios below 60 per cent.

Which major mortgage lender's bankruptcy in September 2008 became the symbol of the subprime crisis?

Bear Stearns had signalled trouble a year earlier when two of its mortgage-heavy hedge funds imploded.

The US housing bubble that triggered the 2007–2010 crisis peaked in approximately which year?

Subprime lending had jumped dramatically in the 2004 to 2006 period just before it burst.

Which economist argued in Freakonomics that agents sell their own homes for more than their clients'?

His point was that a commission rewards a quick sale more than a high price.

What does the abbreviation MLS stand for in real estate?

The idea dates to the late 1800s, when brokers met at their local associations to share properties and agreed to split fees.

An acre is traditionally the area of one chain by one furlong. How many square feet is that?

In the Middle Ages it was reckoned as the land one man with eight oxen could plough in a day.

Where was the Torrens system of land registration first introduced in 1858?

Sir Robert Torrens devised it; many countries have adopted it since.

The first condominium law in the United States was passed in 1958 where?

The first condo in the continental US followed in Salt Lake City in 1960; the concept reached America from Europe via the Caribbean.

Monopoly is derived from a 1903 creation by Lizzie Magie called what?

She meant it to show that an economy rewarding individuals beats one where monopolists hold all the wealth; Parker Brothers bought her patent for $500.

The streets on the original Monopoly board are named after locations in which New Jersey resort?

Marvin Gardens is a misspelling of the real Marven Gardens, introduced by the family who taught Charles Darrow the game.

In World War II, British intelligence sent POWs Monopoly sets with what hidden inside?

Waddingtons could print on silk, which made the maps easy to hide.

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 cost the United States how much?

That worked out at roughly four cents an acre; the land was bought from Napoleon's France.

Which two American envoys negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in Paris?

Jefferson had sent them to buy just New Orleans; France offered the whole territory.

The United States bought a vast northern territory from Russia in 1867 for what sum?

That is about two cents an acre; critics called it Seward's Folly after the Secretary of State who arranged it.

A 1626 Dutch letter records the purchase of Manhattan Island from the Lenape for how much?

Peter Minuit is credited with the deal for the Dutch West India Company; the famous "$24" figure is a 19th-century conversion.

The Homestead Act signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 offered settlers how much federal land?

Between 1862 and 1934 the government granted 1.6 million homesteads, about ten per cent of all US land.

US homesteading ended in 1976 except in which state, where it ran until 1986?

Only about 40 per cent of applicants managed to complete the process and take title.

Between 1908 and 1940 which retailer sold entire houses as mail-order kits?

The first Modern Homes catalogue offered 44 styles priced from $360 to $2,890.

Levittown, New York, the first mass-produced American suburb, was built between 1947 and 1951 for whom?

Levitt & Sons used pre-cut lumber from their own factory and built on concrete slabs, which required a change in the building code.

Levittown's 1949 "ranch" houses went on sale at what planned price?

They came with an expandable attic, radiant heating and no garage.

Clause 25 of the original Levittown lease was a restrictive covenant that did what?

Such covenants matched federal policy: the FHA insured mortgages only in racially unmixed developments.

What is the 1930s practice of marking minority neighbourhoods on maps as too risky for mortgages?

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation drew the colour-coded "residential security" maps.

The Fair Housing Act was signed by Lyndon Johnson in 1968 during riots that followed whose assassination?

King had led the 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement that helped push the law.

At the start of 2025 the US homeownership rate was roughly what?

It was 62.1 per cent in 1960 and peaked near 67 per cent in 2000.

Zillow was founded in 2006 by former executives of which company?

Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink had already spun Expedia out of Microsoft and wanted to do for houses what Expedia did for travel.

Which rival listings site did Zillow buy in 2015 for $2.5 billion?

Zillow Group then ran four brands: Zillow, Trulia, StreetEasy and HotPads.

RE/MAX, founded in Denver in 1973, is known for a logo featuring what?

The balloon arrived in 1978 with the "Above the Crowd" campaign; founder Dave Liniger later tried to balloon around the world.

Airbnb's name is short for what?

It began in 2007 with air mattresses in a San Francisco living room during a design conference.

Barbara Corcoran sold her New York brokerage, the Corcoran Group, in 2001 for how much?

She was the second of ten children in a working-class New Jersey family.

On Property Brothers, twin Drew Scott finds the houses. What does his brother Jonathan do?

The Canadian show has aired in more than 150 countries.

The largest privately owned house in the United States, with 250 rooms, is which North Carolina estate?

George Vanderbilt built it near Asheville between 1889 and 1895; it has 35 bedrooms and 43 bathrooms.

Hearst Castle in San Simeon was designed by which pioneering architect?

William Randolph Hearst commissioned her in 1919 for "something a little more comfortable" than the family campsite; work ran until 1947.

The Empire State Building was constructed in how many years?

Work started in March 1930 and the 102-storey tower opened in 1931 on the site of the old Waldorf–Astoria Hotel.

The London royal residence began life in 1703 as a townhouse built for which nobleman?

George III bought it in 1761 as a private home for Queen Charlotte, and John Nash later enlarged it.

The Chinese practice of arranging buildings to channel qi translates literally as what?

Feng shui's modern critics have ranged from 16th-century Jesuits to 20th-century Chinese communists.

The Sears Modern Homes catalogue was last issued in which year?

Kit homes were still being advertised into 1942, based on earlier models.

The Great Depression cut US real estate values by roughly how much in the four years after 1929?

The 1934 National Housing Act responded by creating mortgage insurance for home buyers.

Which 1885 Chicago structure, the first with a steel frame, is widely called the first skyscraper?

It stood ten storeys and 138 feet tall, record-setting then though far too short to count as a skyscraper today.

Who introduced the safety elevator in 1857 at the E. V. Haughwout Building in New York?

Without a safe way to move people upward, tall buildings made little commercial sense; his company still makes elevators today.

Building societies, Britain's mutual mortgage lenders, began in the late 1700s in which city?

Many early societies met in taverns and coffeehouses, where the town's prosperous metalworkers pooled money to buy property.

The term 'eminent domain' comes from a 1625 treatise on war and peace by which Dutch jurist?

His Latin phrase dominium eminens means 'supreme ownership'; Louisiana still prefers the word expropriation.

Which 2005 Supreme Court case about a Connecticut town expanded the power to seize private property?

It was the fourth major ruling since the 1950s to widen eminent domain, after Berman, Penn Central and Midkiff.

Some structural steel in the Burj Khalifa was salvaged from which demolished building?

More than 35,000 tonnes from the former East German parliament were shipped to Dubai; the tower opened on 4 January 2010.