What is real property? Land, everything permanently affixed to it, and the bundle of rights that comes with both, identified by legal description and transferred by a recorded deed.
Real property is land, everything permanently affixed to it, and the rights that come with the two. The land part is the surface, and in principle a column of space above it and the ground beneath. The affixed part is anything attached with the intention that it stay: the house, the garage, the block wall, the mature trees, the well. The rights part is what lawyers call the bundle: the right to possess, to use, to exclude other people, to transfer by sale or by will, and, where they were never severed off, the rights to the minerals below and the water. Real estate and realty are the same idea in ordinary speech, though real estate tends to name the physical thing and real property the physical thing plus the rights in it.
Personal property is everything else: movable things, carried by a bill of sale or a title certificate rather than by a deed. The line matters at every closing, because what conveys with the land is real property and what walks out the door is not. It also matters in Nevada in a way buyers from other states do not expect, because rights can be severed from the land and sold separately. Water is the clearest case. Nevada runs on prior appropriation, and a water right is its own property right with its own priority date, so a parcel and the water to irrigate it are two purchases rather than one. Minerals can be severed the same way, and a deed that reserves them keeps them with the seller and the seller's successors indefinitely.
Real property is identified by a legal description rather than an address: a lot and block on a recorded subdivision map, a metes and bounds description, or a unit on a condominium plat. That description is what a deed conveys, and the deed is recorded with the county recorder to put the world on notice. Nothing moves without it. The county assessor carries the same parcel on the real property roll, which Nevada calls the secured roll, with a parcel number, a use code and a taxable value, and the tax is a lien on the land itself rather than a personal debt of whoever happens to own it that year. A manufactured home that has not been converted sits on the unsecured personal property roll instead, which is the same distinction doing visible work.
A worked example
A 2.5 acre rural parcel lists at $310,000 with a house, a barn and irrigated pasture. The deed conveys the land and everything affixed to it: the house, the barn, the block wall, the fruit trees, the well casing and the pump house on its concrete pad. The tractor in the barn, the propane tank the seller leases, and two portable sheds sitting on gravel do not convey, because none of them is attached. And the appropriated water right that irrigates the pasture is a separate certificate on the State Engineer's records, so a purchase agreement that never names it buys the ditch and not the right to fill it.
Read the county record a parcel sits on
Questions people ask
What is the difference between real property and real estate?
In everyday use, none. Where the distinction is drawn, real estate means the physical land and what is attached to it, and real property means that plus the legal rights of ownership in it. Nevada statutes and county records use real property.
Is a mobile home real property?
Not until it is converted. A manufactured home in Nevada is titled personal property through the Manufactured Housing Division and billed on the unsecured tax roll, and it becomes part of the real property only once an affidavit of conversion affixes it to land the owner holds.