A residential real estate transaction looks like a property transfer, but it is governed for most of its life by contract law, and the people who get hurt are the ones who never noticed the difference. This UpLaw guide walks the entire arc of a home sale: the listing agreement and the brokerage relationship after the NAR commission settlement, the purchase and sale agreement and the statute of frauds that makes it enforceable, the contingency architecture (financing, inspection, appraisal, sale-of-current-home) that gives each side its off-ramps, earnest money and the penalty rule, the title search and what title insurance actually covers, the deed forms and the six covenants of title, the co-ownership regimes buyers choose at the closing table without understanding them, the seller's disclosure duty after Johnson v. Davis and the limits of an "as-is" clause, the mortgage note and security instrument, the federal consumer-protection overlay of RESPA and TRID, and the closing itself — settlement statement, prorations, funding, and recording. It closes with the remedies when a deal collapses: specific performance, liquidated damages, rescission, and the equitable defenses that meet them. Real property law is overwhelmingly state law, so this guide teaches the framework, the uniform-act and majority approaches, and representative state variations — always confirm your own jurisdiction's rule. A running hypothetical follows buyer Rosalind Pike and the Alvarez family from first offer to recorded deed.