Lease + Option vs seller financing?

[Brandon Schlichter]

Up to this point I haven't done seller financing at all, however in order to grow my rental business I think I might need to start looking at it more. 

A investment colleague was telling me the absolute wonders of master lease with a option fee paid up front. He said he thought it was preferable to just about any other method, and has been doing it for well over 30 years. To this point, he has bought many, many houses , apartments and even several strip malls by getting them tied up in lease with options. 

Looking around, there's tons of property to be had, however in many cases sellers want to get rid of em (or at least do 'something' with them that takes their hands out of it). Seller financing isn't always a good option because banks specifically forbid it, because the buyer has to take a deed transfer and that would cause a lien position loss on their end. 

My concerns with leasing would specifically be between property owners who already have tenants in place (And i'm mostly worried about HUD type rentals) which then would require the current lease be terminated, me to come in as new lessee, then to re-lease to the current tenant as a new sublease. This all of course could be done via contracts but it also seems a bit messy, granted anything other than seller financing is going to look messy anyway.

Any thoughts on this vs seller financing would be appreciated.