Owner financing/Lease option

[Greg Stetz]

Hi - I currently rent from the same landlady for a long time. We have a great relationship and the home is located in an amazing neighborhood that my wife and I love. Anyways - the landlady is somewhat of a buy and hold investor having 5 properties I know of. She is way behind on property taxes even on our home that we rent. She hasn’t made any major improvements the home besides new hot water heater and central AC unit. She is a retiree. She’s about $10k behind on taxes w our house according to county tax website. She has stated her struggles with cash and real estate. We offered to possibly buy it in Dec 2018. She replied “maybe next year”. When she presented the new lease in Jan 2019, it was a lease option type of contract w no definite price or dates as most of her leases are not extremely complicated or detailed. She and I spoke about it and she said we have first dibs as she mentioned she does get many mailers about it. She doesnt seem to be in a hurry. Anyways, wife and I prob cant go the traditional bank financing route at this time but we do have excellent credit. It is definitely a property worth negotiating down in price due to better looking and updated houses in this neighborhood. An investor pal of mine mentioned doing owner financing instead. Any help structuring this would be appreciated.

[Wesley Davis]

Ask about owner financing.  Worse thing she can say is no.  If she owner finances though you might have to pay the back taxes,  which can help you create more leverage.   I would get more clarity from her about filling in those details for dates and numbers.  I'd offer to pay her back taxes in exchange for a no money down owner financing, and hopefully at a lower interest rate than what the banks are currently charging.  

If she won't owner finance, see if you can pay the back taxes over time (say a year or two), and at the end of that two years buy it outright from her.  Maybe two years would give you enough time to be able to go through a traditional bank if owner financing doesn't work out.  If she doesn't pay her taxes they'll take the property away from her so I personally would think she would be more motivated to sell then what she is.  

If it is a dated house, I would throw that into the negotiations that it'll need updated etc etc. to lower the price to something reasonable if it's not reasonable already.  

I would try owner financing first at a lowish interest rate (bank rates or lower) first though.