Buying a property with a Life Estate

[Ryan Pal]

Hey Gang,

I have a lead that is 2 houses on one lot.  One house is paying $800 a month and the other is a Life Estate where they are paying 50% of the yearly taxes and utilities.  The relative in the life estate is in their 80s with no plans of leaving.   I've never dealt with life estates so I wanted to get some feedback of how I could structure a deal (if possible).

Any feedback is appreciated, thanks in advance.

[Rick H.]

You need to decide how you intend to benefit and understand your attachment to an opportunity that frankly has little attraction, in my book.

Since you're not going to get conventional financing on a fractional interest, you'll either have to pay cash for the remainderman interest, trade something else to be used as consideration (another property, car, boat, RV, etc.) or note(s) secured by the subject property or perhaps another property.

What is/are the problem(s) the sellers wish to solve? How important are they to solve? What's it worth to them to get the problem(s) solved?