In British usage, however, “real property”, often shortened to just “property”, refers rather to land and fixtures as such while the term “real estate” is used mostly in the context of probate law, and means all interests in land held by a deceased person at death excluding interests in money arising under a trust for sale of or charged on land.

In French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, real estate is called "immovables" With the development of private property ownership, real estate has become a major area of business. Purchasing real estate requires a significant investment, and each parcel of land has unique characteristics, so the real estate industry has evolved into several distinct fields. Specialists are often called on to valuate real estate and facilitate transactions.

In the U.S., REITs generally pay little or no federal income tax, but are subject to a number of special requirements set forth in the Internal Revenue Code, one of which is the requirement to annually distribute at least 90% of its taxable income in the form of dividends to its shareholders.

The first big advantage is that it is an extremely expensive product. Each sale you make generates more profit potential for this reason.

Leverage, or the ability to borrow based on the value of the property, is probably the second greatest advantage. It is much easier to finance real estate than any other product. While investing in most assets requires the purchaser to have the full purchase price available for the asset, in real estate investing, one only needs to have a fraction of the purchase price available (like 5%, 10% or 20%) as a down payment. Therefore, real estate, although incredibly expensive, is still easier to buy than say, a piece of industrial equipment of the same value.