Meaning & use
real estate
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Meanings
noununcountablebusiness
Land together with any buildings on it, treated as property that can be owned, bought or sold.
Grammar: Uncountable: real estate is expensive here, not 'a real estate'.
Patterns
- invest in real estate
- real estate in a place
Real estate in the city center has become very expensive.
She made her money by investing in real estate during the 1990s.
The company owns real estate on three continents.
noununcountablebusiness
The business of buying, selling or renting land and buildings.
Grammar: Often used before another noun: a real estate agent, a real estate firm.
Patterns
- work in real estate
- a real estate agent
He works in real estate and sells homes in the suburbs.
A real estate agent showed us four apartments on Saturday.
The real estate market cooled when interest rates rose.
noununcountableinformalfigurative
Valuable physical space for something, such as space on a screen or a shelf.
Grammar: Figurative, informal use: screen real estate.
Patterns
- screen real estate
Large menus take up valuable screen real estate.
Every inch of shelf real estate in the shop is carefully used.
Common combinations
- commercial real estate
- Commercial real estate includes offices and shops.
- real estate agent
- Our real estate agent negotiated a lower price.
- invest in real estate
- Many people invest in real estate for retirement income.
- real estate market
- The real estate market is slowing in several regions.
- prime real estate
- The beachfront plot is prime real estate.
Synonyms and how they differ
- property
- Property is the common British word and is broader, covering anything owned, not only land and buildings.
- land
- Land refers only to the ground, whereas real estate includes buildings too.
- realty
- Realty is a formal, legal word and appears mostly in company names.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: real estate or real state? real estate or estate?
real estate vs real state
The correct spelling is real estate; 'state' is a common mistake.
real estate vs estate
An estate alone can mean a large country property or everything a person leaves at death.
Practice
My cousin sells houses; she works in ______.
Choose one answer.
Real estate is the business of property. 'Real state' is a spelling mistake and 'royal estate' would mean land belonging to a monarch.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “real estate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.