Lease Option Question

[Gerald Thompson]

OK... I need some advice.  I have a property that has been listed by a realtor.  No more than a week into the contract I get a potential lease option deal on the same house.  This was not through the realtor.  What can I do in this situation?  I do not want to create a bad relation with my realtor, but also don't want a lead to get away.  I thought of standard rent for 6 months (end of contract obligation) but the tenant doesn't want to leave when the house sells.  Should I walk from the deal and hope for a sale later?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Gerald

[Katharine Chartrand]

If you care about your relationship with the Realtor, then talk to the realtor.  Good realtors are very pragmatic people whose talent should be to figure out reasonable solutions to situations like this. 

If you don't care about the realtor or your business reputation generally, just take the house off the market and tell the realtor you decided to rent due to unexpected financial problems. They are not going to know it was a lease option.  I doubt that is the first time that happened. 

But you do have to decide who you are.  There is some cost to being a jerk. Is it really less than whatever arrangement the realtor would be willing to make with you? And being frank with the realtor will build that relationship. Short term $$ is not everything if you are in it even for the medium term.

>KNC<