Real estate for sale in Egypt: the property types explained

Egyptian listings use a vocabulary that does not map cleanly onto European or American property categories. A 'chalet' is a resort apartment, a 'twin house' is a semi-detached villa, and 'duplex' means two floors inside one unit, not two dwellings.

Most confusion in an Egyptian property search is vocabulary, not price. Sellers list in Arabic using terms with settled local meanings, and machine translation flattens them into words that mean something else in English. This page is the glossary.

Residential types

English listing term	Arabic	What it actually is
Apartment / flat	شقة	A unit on one floor in a building. The default Egyptian dwelling; most stock is this.
Studio	استوديو	Single-room unit with a separate bathroom. Common in resort areas, rare in family districts.
Duplex	دوبلكس	One dwelling spread over two connected floors — not two separate units.
Penthouse	بنتهاوس	Top-floor unit, usually with a roof terrace. Sometimes sold with the roof, sometimes only with use of it — ask which.
Ground floor with garden	دور أرضي بحديقة	Ground unit with private garden. Verify the garden is inside the title, not a compound allocation.
Chalet	شاليه	A resort apartment on the coast. Not a mountain house; the word carries no implication of detachment.
Townhouse	تاون هاوس	Terraced villa inside a compound, sharing both side walls except at the ends.
Twin house	توين هاوس	Semi-detached villa; two mirrored units sharing one wall.
Standalone villa	فيلا مستقلة	Detached house on its own plot, inside or outside a compound.

Finishing levels

Finishing state moves price more than almost any other single variable, and it is described with a fixed set of terms.

على المحارة / core and shell — bare blockwork and screed. No plumbing fixtures, no flooring, often no internal doors. Budget a substantial additional spend and several months.
نص تشطيب / semi-finished — plastering and basic installations done, surfaces not.
تشطيب كامل / fully finished — floors, doors, kitchen and bathrooms installed, ready to occupy.
سوبر لوكس and ألترا سوبر لوكس — marketing grades above 'fully finished'. They have no standard definition, so look at what is physically installed.
مفروش / furnished — furniture included. Get an itemised inventory annexed to the contract or it will not be there at handover.

Land and commercial

أرض سكنية — residential building land. Foreign buyers face additional approvals and, for vacant land, an obligation to build within a set period.
أرض زراعية — agricultural land. Foreigners cannot own it, and it cannot lawfully be built on without a change of use.
محل / محل تجاري — retail shop unit.
مكتب إداري — office unit.
مخزن، مصنع — warehouse, factory.

Foreign ownership under Law 230 of 1996 is framed around residential use. Commercial acquisition by a non-Egyptian is usually structured through an Egyptian company rather than in a personal name.

Measurements

Areas are quoted in square metres. Two numbers matter for houses and villas and listings frequently give only one: مساحة الأرض (plot area) and مساحة المباني (built area). For apartments, ask whether the quoted metre count is net internal or includes a share of common space — the difference is routinely ten per cent or more.

Common questions

What is the difference between a twin house and a townhouse?

A twin house shares one wall with a single mirrored neighbour. A townhouse sits in a terrace and shares both side walls unless it is an end unit, which sells at a premium.

Is a chalet in Egypt a house?

No. In Egyptian listings a chalet is an apartment in a coastal resort development. It is a flat, priced and titled as one.

What does 'on the mahara' mean?

على المحارة is core-and-shell: structurally complete but internally bare. You are buying an empty concrete box and will finish it yourself.

Last reviewed September 2026. Prices, tax rates, residency thresholds and ownership rules in Egypt change frequently — verify anything you are relying on.