Buying out a tenant's lease?

[Maureen Campbell]

I am looking at a small multi-family that would need to be financed as owner-occupied. Unfortunately, both of the units in the building I am looking at are currently occupied by tenants on leases that won't expire anytime soon. Has anyone ever bought out a lease of an existing tenant or made delivering one unit vacant as a contingency of the sale?

The leases on both units have a lot of time left on them (9ish months) that just doesn't align with what we are trying to do and we would not necessarily want to inherit the tenant in the lower unit anyway. The lenders are saying that we would need to occupy the property within 60 days and have a signed notice to quit.

Any creative ideas welcome!

[Mindy Jensen]

There isn't any issue doing that, although you will be paying a higher interest rate when you purchase as an investor rather than an owner occupant.

Lots of properties have tenants on month to month leases. Those leases are much easier to not renew. Read up on your state's landlord tenant laws to see what sort of notice you have to give. Conveniently all 50 states are different.