Lease to Own/ Seller Finance Deal

[Nathaniel Hovsepian]

I had a gentleman reach out to me yesterday about a home that he is renting. He and his family are on a fixed income through disability and cannot afford to purchase the home that they are renting now that the landlord is looking to sell it. 

He told me that the owner is asking $25k for the house, and that he can only afford about $350 per month for rent.

He wants to do some sort of deal where he were to pay me the rent for a specified period of time and then he would become the owner. Sounds like a lease to own to me. 

The kicker is that he has no money for a downpayment of any sort to buy the option at the outset. I was thinking that I could put up the money on the home and just collect a "mortgage" payment from him.

This seems very risky to me because he essentially has no skin in the game, besides having a place that he and his family can live for $350 per month. 

The numbers seem really good though as far as ROI. Curious to know any opinions on this one, if anyone has any experience in this type of deal, good or bad.