But real estate is more than just houses; it includes apartment, condominiums, cooperatives, farms, retail stores, office buildings, shopping centers, warehouses, industrial plants, medical centers, and many other types of property. Hundreds of thousands of licensed professionals work fulltime in the selling of real estate. The industry also provides employment for many part-time salespeople and support personnel for the sales force.
Moreover, the notion of property rights has existed since the beginning of civilization. It can be noted that early nomadic societies already manifested a similarity to contract management jobs on their lands. They tried to manage all their properties in equal sharing and distributed property rights among tribes within the circle of families under the condition for its diligent preservation and cultivation. Likewise, for those nomadic societies where land was bountiful, tribes had no need to secure individual plots of land or establish permanent residences. Historians and sociologists suggest that the early agrarian societies showed the first signs of individual property rights. Whether the lands were dominated by individuals, families, or clans, the agrarian societies practiced ownership of specific plots as they employed their contract management skills in dealing with their properties.
Meanwhile, the urban orientation of ancient Greece caused the dissolution of communal properties. Individual and familial ownership of land was the norm. This notion of the absolute right of ownership continued until the end of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire exercised its contract administrator jobs over all of the properties of all her colonies which had extended throughout virtually all of Europe, protecting its dominion and upholding the law. With the decline of the Roman Empire and the subsequent barbarian invasions, families and landowners had little with which to guard their belongings and protect their land. This desire for security led to the feudal system of the middle Ages. Feudalism entailed a lord who held vast lands in his management jobs and dominion, hence the word, “landlord”. Those who lived on his land and farmed it were called vassals. Vowing homage and fealty to their lords, vassals were guaranteed protection of their lives and their chattel. The lord, in turn, owed homage to his king, acting as the king’s vassal who also employed management power over the lands and properties. So strong was the bond between vassal and lord that the vassals were considered unfree. However, they were not actually mere slaves but rather they were more like tenants, who paid their rent with the use of the land for their products. They also performed military services in times of war. While the lord presided over the land, vassals farmed individual rights to their offspring.
With the dissolution of the feudal system in the 13th century, vassals were able to claim true ownership of the land that they farmed. In France, homage and fealty was not wholly abandoned until the Revolution in the late 1700s, when the aristocracy was abolished. At that time, the common man obtained unconditional freedom and with it the right to own land. Such rights had not been in existence since the Roman Empire nearly 1300 years before then. The absolute freedom and rights of the common man during the late 18th century opened up the prospects for a better living. Thus, the purchase of land became a growing business that is known today as real estate by which contract management jobs in its transaction have been involved.
While common people succeeded in asserting their rights to the ownership of land in Europe, ironically, European nations established vast empires overseas and imposing an authority involving contract management job over all the properties, and even claiming foreign lands as their own and subjecting the native inhabitants to their management system of rule. Lured by the natural resources of these lands, the Europeans set up great trade routes that increased their wealth and power. Many Europeans considered it the “white man’s burden” to civilize the inhabitants of these newly-claimed lands, while missionaries thought it was their duty to lead the natives toward salvation. As Americans moved westward in the nineteenth century, they claimed public lands with no title. By clearing the unclaimed land, farming it, and building a home there, settlers felt that they had earned the right to the land’s title or at least the right to buy it at a nominal price. This establishment is what is now known as squatter’s rights. The Pre-emption Act of 1841 officially declared squatter’s rights as legitimate. For another fifty years over 200 million acres of land changed from government to private ownership, until Congress abolished the act in 1891. It is designed so that the Congress, imposing contracts administrators over the lands, is able to regulate the power of dominion and ownership of the natural resources of the country.
