- published: 10 May 2014
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A commuter town is a town whose residents normally work elsewhere, although they live and sleep in these neighborhoods. The name also suggests that these communities have little commercial or industrial activity beyond a small amount of retail, oriented toward serving the residents.
A commuter town may also be known as an exurb (short for "extra-urban"), or a bedroom community (Canada and northeastern U.S. usage), bedroom town or bedroom suburb (U.S. usage), a dormitory town or dormitory suburb (UK Commonwealth and Ireland usage also sometimes Canadian), or less commonly a dormitory village (UK Commonwealth Ireland and sometimes Canadian as well). The phrase "bedroom town" has also been adopted into the Japanese wasei-eigo word bed town (ベッドタウン, beddotaun).
Suburbs and commuter towns are often the same place, but sometimes not. As with college town, resort town, and mill town, the term commuter town describes the place's predominant economic function. A suburb in contrast is a community of lesser size, density, political power and/or commerce than a nearby community. Economic function may change, for example when improved transport brings commuters to industrial suburbs or railway towns in search of suburban living. Some suburbs, for example Teterboro, New Jersey and Emeryville, California remained industrial when they became surrounded by commuter towns. Many commuters work in such industrial suburbs but few reside; hence, they are not commuter towns.
An estate agent is a person or business that arranges the selling, renting or management of properties, and other buildings, in the United Kingdom and Ireland. An agent that specialises in renting is often called a letting or management agent. Estate agents are mainly engaged in the marketing of property available for sale and a solicitor or licensed conveyancer is used to prepare the legal documents. In Scotland, however, many solicitors also act as estate agents, a practice that is rare in England and Wales.
It is customary in the United Kingdom and in Ireland to refer to real estate or real property simply as property.
The estate agent remains the current title for the person responsible for the management of one group of privately owned, all or mostly tenanted, properties under one ownership. Alternative titles are Factor, Steward or Bailiff depending on the era, the region and the extent of the property concerned.
The term originally referred to a person responsible for managing a landed estate, while those engaged in the buying and selling of homes were "House Agents", and those selling land were "Land Agents". However, in the 20th century, "Estate Agent" started to be used as a generic term. Estate agent is roughly synonymous with the United States term real estate broker.