Off-market financing advice

[Chloe Hohman]

My husband and I were recently connected with someone who would like to sell their townhome off-market (to avoid realtor fees, specifically). They owe about 80k on the property. Asking 240k for the property, but plan to up the asking price to 250k if/when they put it on the market this summer. They have tenants in the property who want to stay another year (until next August). My husband and I would like to propose some creative financing options...potentially offering a lease-to-own style option? While we have liquid to do a 5-15k downpayment, we'd like to use a minimal amount of our own money.

Seller is not in need of a lump sum of cash, and has said they would be open to monthly payments as a financing option. However, neither ourselves or the seller have experience in this kind of deal, so understand we will probably want to loop in legal advice as/if we proceed. Any advice is appreciated!

[Tom S.]

@Chloe Hohman  Agree with Nicolas, I don't see any money for you in this deal.

Even if you could put down $50k, and financing $200k, with a standard 30 year 7.5% mortgage, your mortgage payments would be $1400 per month. Plus taxes, plus HOA, plus maintenance of the property. You'll be negative every month.

As mentioned above, you can't do a clean seller finance (where you get the title at closing) unless you put down $80k to pay off their existing mortgage.