Musing about my first deal

[Tim Kersting]

so as the title would indicate, I have not made a real estate investment as of yet. I guess I am still trying to figure out a strategy that is best suited for my current financial situation. Suffice to say I am getting a little antsy.

Be that as it may, I have had this idea rolling around in my brain for some weeks now so I thought I would float it out to the BP universe to see what other thoughts there might be.

I was thinking of possibly offering to buy my landlord's house.. the one that I currently live in...

Some of the reasons why I'm thinking this might be a good Prospect is that; house is in need of work. Has the landlord comma he tends not to have time to work on the house since he's quite busy running his landscaping business. Has a future investor I don't mind so much because I do many of the repairs and he reimburses me for them... Good practice... and I happen to know what I'm doing.

Obviously it's livable but pretty soon he's going to need to do some work. The driveway to be replaced  and the electrical is a little sketchy.

Also, the property is already setup to have a second unit... It used to have a studio apartment on the back of the garage with its own access. It just needs to be cleaned up and a couple of walls put back up and it would be ready to rent.

I did a title search. I found that he has enough equity  that  he would definitely turn a profit even below market value.

Comps in the area go for about 420 k... It appears he has about 200k in equity, with only the primary mortgage outstanding on the property.

Since I am personally a ways away from having any sort of substantial down payment, I'm thinking that he might be able to carry the loan?

So I guess my question, or questions, ...

Does this scenario seem like a project worthy of pursuit? If so how do I go about broaching the subject? I need to do a little more research on how he would carry the loan, but does that seem like it would make sense? Is there perhaps another strategy for tactic that would be better? What's the best way to make something like this a win-win?

At the end of the day, he may be completely emotionally attached to the property and this could all be moot, but at least it's a good brain exercise.

Whatever thoughts or suggestions or input is very much appreciated.