GLOSSARY

The words on the plat

59 terms a land buyer, a builder's marketer or a broker actually runs into — defined in plain English, without the legalese. Definitions here are explanatory, not legal advice.

Book a demo See the demos

Land & lots

Acre: 43,560 square feet, exactly. A quarter-acre lot is 10,890 square feet, and an acre is a little smaller than a football field with the end zones left out.
Buildable area also: Building envelope: What is left of a lot after setbacks, easements and any no-build areas are taken out — the ground a house or building can actually occupy. Two lots of identical size can have very different buildable areas.
Cul-de-sac also: Court, Dead-end street: A street closed at one end with a turnaround bulb. Lots on the bulb are pie-shaped — narrow at the street, wide at the rear — and often carry a premium because through traffic never reaches them.
Easement: A recorded right for someone else to use part of a lot — utility lines, drainage, or access to the property behind it. The owner still owns that ground but generally cannot build over it. Easements created when the subdivision was platted are drawn on the plat; anything granted later shows up in the title work.
Exposure also: Orientation, Solar exposure: Which direction a lot and its back yard face. Exposure drives afternoon sun, shade and cooling cost, and in hot markets a north-facing back yard sells at a premium — it belongs on the lot card next to size and dimensions.
Finished lot: A lot with streets, water, sewer, dry utilities, drainage and grading complete, so a builder can pull a permit and start a house. Finished lots are the most valuable form of land inventory and usually the scarcest.
Frontage also: Lot width: The width of a lot measured along the street it faces — or along water, greenbelt or a golf course when that is the feature being sold. Frontage sets how wide a house can be and is one of the main drivers of lot price.
Lot: One legally described piece of land, normally created by a recorded plat, intended for a single home or building. The lot is the unit of sale in a subdivision, and its number comes straight off the plat.
Master-planned community also: MPC, Master planned community: A large community planned as a whole and delivered in phases, with multiple neighborhoods, often multiple builders, amenities, and sometimes schools and commercial. It is governed by one masterplan and usually by an HOA or a special district.
Pad-ready lot also: Pad ready: A lot graded to a building pad with utilities stubbed to it, so a builder can start footings. The phrase is often used loosely as a synonym for finished lot, so confirm exactly what is included before pricing it.
Parcel also: Tax parcel, APN: Any single piece of land held under one ownership with its own tax identification number. A parcel can be one lot, a block of many lots, or unplatted acreage that has never been subdivided.
Raw land also: Unimproved land: Land with no entitlements and no improvements: no approved plat, no streets, no utilities. It is the cheapest way into a deal and the slowest, since the path to finished lots is measured in years.
Square foot also: Sq ft, SF: One foot by one foot; 43,560 square feet make an acre. Lots under about an acre are usually quoted in square feet and larger parcels in acres, and buyers compare faster when a lot card shows both.
Tract: A defined piece of land, normally larger than a lot and often not platted, as in a 40-acre tract. Some plats also label non-residential pieces such as open space or a detention pond as tracts.
View lot: A lot priced for what you can see from it — greenbelt, water, mountains, golf or a city skyline. The view has to be protected by open space or an easement, or the premium disappears the day the next phase builds.
Walkout lot also: Walkout basement lot, Daylight lot: A lot with enough fall from front to back that the basement opens at grade in the rear. Walkouts command a premium in rolling terrain because they add finished living space and daylight.

Entitlement & platting

Density also: Units per acre, Dwelling units per acre: Units per acre. Gross density counts the entire site including streets and open space, while net density counts only the land inside the lots — the same community can honestly report two different numbers, so always ask which one is being quoted.
Entitlements also: Entitled land: The government approvals that make land legally developable: rezoning, plat approval, site plan approval, utility commitments and permits. Entitled land is worth more than raw land because the approval risk has been removed.
FAR (floor area ratio) also: Floor area ratio: Total building floor area divided by lot area. A FAR of 0.5 on a 10,000 square foot lot allows 5,000 square feet of building; FAR governs mostly commercial and urban zoning, while single-family subdivisions are usually controlled by lot coverage instead.
Final plat: The subdivision map approved once the conditions attached to the preliminary plat have been satisfied. It carries exact lot lines, dimensions, easements and dedications, and it is the drawing that gets recorded.
Horizontal improvements also: Horizontal development, Site work: Everything built before a house goes up: mass grading, streets, curb and gutter, storm drainage, water, sewer and dry utilities. Horizontal work is what turns raw land into finished lots — vertical construction is the buildings that follow.
Impact fee: A one-time charge a city or county places on new development to pay for the roads, schools, parks and utility capacity it consumes. It is usually collected at plat recording or at permit, and it is a real line item in the cost of every lot.
Lot coverage also: Building coverage: The share of a lot that the building footprint is allowed to cover, set by zoning as a percentage. At 40 percent coverage an 8,000 square foot lot allows a 3,200 square foot footprint, normally counting the house, the garage and covered areas.
Preliminary plat also: Prelim: The first formal subdivision map submitted to the city or county, showing proposed lots, streets, drainage and utilities. Approval comes with conditions attached, and lots cannot be legally sold off it.
Recorded plat: A final plat that has been filed with the county recorder or clerk. Recording is the moment the lots legally exist, and every lot description, address and deed afterwards refers back to it.
Right-of-way also: ROW: The strip of land dedicated for the street, the sidewalk and the utilities that run along it. It is normally dedicated to the public and is not part of the lot, even though the first few feet of what looks like the front yard usually sit inside it.
Setback also: Building line, Building setback line: The minimum distance a structure has to stay back from each lot line — front, side and rear — set by zoning or noted on the plat. Setbacks together with easements are what define the buildable area.
Subdivision also: Community, Development: Dividing a parcel into two or more lots under local rules, and also the community that results. The normal sequence is preliminary plat, engineering and construction, final plat, then recording.
Zoning also: Rezoning, Zoning district: The local rule that sets what a parcel may be used for and the limits it must build within: use, density, height, setbacks, coverage and parking. Changing it is a rezoning, and that is usually the longest step in entitlements.

Deals & finance

A&D loan also: Acquisition and development loan: Short-term financing that covers buying the land and paying for the horizontal improvements that turn it into finished lots. The lender is repaid as lots sell, through a release price collected at each closing.
Absorption also: Absorption rate: How fast lots or homes sell in a community or a submarket, usually stated as sales per month. It sets the pace of a takedown schedule and is the number a lender checks hardest in a pro forma.
CC&Rs also: Covenants, conditions and restrictions, Covenants: The recorded rules for a subdivision: architectural standards, allowed uses, fencing, parking, short-term rentals. They run with the land, bind every future owner, and are normally enforced by the HOA.
Deed restriction also: Restrictive covenant: A limit on how land may be used, written into the deed or into a separately recorded document. It is private rather than governmental, so it can be stricter than zoning and it stays attached to the land when the lot sells.
Earnest money also: Good-faith deposit: The deposit a buyer puts up when the purchase agreement is signed, held in escrow and credited toward the price at closing. It is usually refundable during the feasibility or due-diligence period, after which it goes hard.
Escrow: A neutral third party — a title company, an escrow company or an attorney depending on the state — holds the funds and documents until every condition of the contract is met, then closes and disburses.
Front foot also: Price per front foot: A pricing and assessment unit based on the width of a lot at the street. Land priced per front foot rewards width, which is why two lots with the same acreage can be worth very different amounts.
HOA also: Homeowners association, POA: The association that owns and maintains a community’s common areas and enforces the CC&Rs, funded by dues assessed on every owner. Buyers should see the dues, what they cover and any transfer fee before they sign.
ILSA also: Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act: A 1968 federal disclosure law that applies when unimproved lots are marketed through interstate commerce — mail, phone or the internet. A developer selling 100 or more non-exempt lots must register with the CFPB and give each buyer a property report before signing. Subdivisions under 25 lots are exempt, as are lots of 20 acres or more and contracts that obligate the seller to build within two years.
Land banking also: Land bank: Buying land and holding it ahead of demand — either for your own future project, or as a third party that buys finished lots and sells them back to a builder on a takedown schedule. It trades carrying cost for control of future lot supply.
Rolling option also: Option takedown: A lot contract in which a builder pays an option fee plus deposits and then buys lots in scheduled batches rather than taking a whole phase at once. It keeps land off the builder’s balance sheet and shifts the carrying cost to the seller or the land banker.
Special district (MUD/PID) also: MUD, PID, CDD, Metro district: A taxing district formed to finance a community’s infrastructure — a MUD in Texas, a PID in several states, a CDD in Florida, a metro district in Colorado. The cost is repaid through an assessment or a tax on the lots, and disclosure to buyers is normally required.
Takedown also: Takedown schedule: A scheduled lot purchase: a builder buys an agreed number of lots on a set schedule, often quarterly, at agreed prices instead of buying a whole phase outright. The schedule is negotiated against the absorption the community is expected to achieve.
Title commitment also: Commitment for title insurance, Title binder: The title company’s written offer to insure title. It names the current owner, lists what must be cleared before closing, and lists what the policy will not cover — liens, easements and restrictions — which is where surprises about a lot usually surface.

Sales & marketing

Lot premium: An amount added to the base lot price for a better position: greenbelt, cul-de-sac, water, view, walkout grade or extra width. Premiums carry a large share of the margin in a community, which is why the map has to make the difference between two lots obvious.
MLS also: Multiple Listing Service: The broker-run listing database for a region, which feeds the public portals. Land and lot listings there need acreage, a legal description and usually the parcel number, so the data has to match the plat exactly.
Model home: A finished, furnished home a builder keeps open to show a floor plan and finish level. It often doubles as the sales center and is typically sold at the end of the phase.
Quick move-in (QMI) also: Inventory home, Move-in ready home: A home already under construction or complete, so a buyer can close in weeks instead of waiting out a full build. Builders market them by completion date, and the list changes weekly — whatever page shows them has to stay as current as the construction schedule.
Reserved also: On hold, Soft hold: A lot a buyer is holding, usually with a small deposit, before a purchase agreement is signed. It is not binding the way under contract is, and because builders define it differently, a map should spell out what reserved means in that community.
Sales center also: Sales office, Welcome center: The on-site office where a buyer meets an agent, walks the community map, picks a lot and picks a floor plan. It is where a large touchscreen version of the map does the most work.
Sold also: Closed: The sale has closed: the deed transferred and the funds were disbursed. It is a different state from under contract, and a map that blurs the two will mislead buyers about what is actually available.
Spec home also: Speculative home: A home a builder starts without a buyer under contract, on speculation. Once it is close to complete it is marketed as a quick move-in.
Under contract also: Pending: A lot with a signed purchase agreement that has not closed yet, often still subject to financing, feasibility or title review. Some markets label the same state pending.

Mapping & survey

ALTA survey also: ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey: A boundary survey performed to the national standard adopted by the American Land Title Association and the NSPS. It maps the boundary plus improvements, easements, rights-of-way and encroachments, and lenders and title companies normally require one on commercial and land closings.
GIS shapefile also: Shapefile, SHP: A geographic data file carrying lot boundaries and their attributes, exported by a civil engineer or a county GIS department. It is the cleanest starting point for a digital map because the geometry is already surveyed and georeferenced.
Interactive site map also: Interactive plat map, Interactive lot map: An online version of a plat map or site plan in which every lot is clickable and shows its size, dimensions, features and current status. A complete one pairs the map with a lot table listing the same data as text, so buyers on a screen reader or a slow connection get everything the map shows.
Metes and bounds: A legal description that walks the boundary line by line using bearings and distances from a point of beginning. It is the normal way to describe acreage and tracts that are not part of a recorded subdivision.
Plat map also: Plat, Subdivision plat: The official map of a subdivision showing lot lines and numbers, dimensions, streets, easements, common areas and dedications. It is the source of truth for what a lot is, and it is the document any accurate community map should be built from.
Section, township and range also: PLSS, Public Land Survey System: The federal survey grid used across most of the Midwest and West. A township is six miles square and holds 36 sections; a section is one mile square and contains 640 acres, so a quarter-quarter section is 40 acres.
Site plan also: Site map: A drawing of what will be built on a parcel: buildings, drives, parking, utilities and landscape. A plat divides land into lots, while a site plan shows the improvements on it — though in sales the phrase is also used loosely for the community map itself.

Now see those terms on a real map

Send your plat today — first draft in 3 business days, quote in one.

Book a demo Get a quote