But what of the purchase of something like a large apartment building?

This is not so simple.  You can't just pay over the money, pick up the apartment building, and walk off with it.

Lots of things are involved:  tenancy, furniture and furnishings, taxes, insurance, repairs, utilities, maintenance, mortgages, taxes, and on and on ...

To effect a transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars and a large complicated holding of this sort may take many weeks or months.

Usually in cases of this kind, and escrow is opened with a bank, an escrow company, and attorney, or some other trust officer - and both buyer and seller make demands upon the other which must be satisfied before the actual exchange of title and ownership takes place.

It may take some time for each party to fulfill the demands made by the other, without which satisfaction the exchange will not occur.

But until that moment occurs in which all demands are met, the apartment building remains in fact the property of the seller, and the money (held in escrow) remains the property of the buyer.

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