ABSTRACT
Many investors are attracted to the tangible nature of real estate assets. Unlike those who invest in stocks and bonds, investors in real estate can pick up a handful of soil, let it fall through their fingers, and imagine the variety of productive uses to which the land may be placed. Land sales in the Middle Ages reflected the tangible nature of real estate. At that time, real estate closings took place on the actual land being conveyed. Neighbors acted as witness to the transfer of title to the real estate, which concluded when the seller placed a clod of earth into the buyer’s hands (Sheppard, 1826). This ritual, known as “livery of seisin,” operated to transfer ownership and possession of the freehold estate from the seller to the buyer (Powell, 1968). Today’s real estate transactions, by contrast, take place in the offices of lawyers and title agents. Instead of marking the transfer of land with a clod of earth, a sales transaction concludes with the seller’s delivery of a deed that contains a legal description of the land to the buyer.
