How do I design a database to store properties, selecting attributes by synonyms

Question

I am designing a database for a real estate application. It is proving to be more involved than I had anticipated (maybe I am overcomplicating things).

The problems

Answer 1

To handle synonyms you could have many-to-many lookup between a table containing the static list of your property types, and a table containing the synonym. This way one synonym could be mapped to more than one property type.

For example:

Table:Property Type
1 House
2 Appartment
3 Large House
4 Cave

Table:Synonym
1 house
2 flat
3 dwelling
4 condo
5 mansion

Table:PropertyType-Synonym
1 1 (House is a house
1 3 (House is a dwelling)
2 2 (Appartment is a flat)
2 3 (Appartment is a dwelling)
2 4 (Appartment is a condo)
3 1 (Large House is a house)
3 3 (Large House is a dwelling)
3 5 (Large House is a mansion)
4 3 (Cave is a dwelling)

For properties, you could utilize a kind of open attribute structure.

For example:

Table:Property
1 Apartment F, Field House Gardens
2 123 Alphabet Street, NumberTown

Table:Attribute
1 Is ground floor?
2 Number of bedrooms
3 Has garden?

Table:Property-Attribute-Values
1 1 No
1 2 2
1 3 Yes
2 2 5 
2 3 Yes

Hope this helps