Need Advice on a Lease-Option Property I Have

[Deborah Mettler]

Hello Group,

I'm at a stumbling block with a residential property I have under a Lease-Option contract. It's a round home by Deltec Homes located in the Upstate area of SC. Travelers Rest which is the mountain area of SC. It has 4 bedrooms, 4 full baths. Open floor plan. Large wrap around deck. Situated on two tracts of land which totals .65 of an acre. Main level is 10 rooms. CHA and a wood stove for an alternative heat source. This home also has a partial - 3-room finished basement with two outside entrances with separate furnace and heat pump. The fourth bathroom is in the basement. Main level is 2435 sq. ft. Basement is 545 sq. ft.

This home is convenient to the metropolitan city of Greenville (20 minutes) and is only 8 miles to shopping, restaurants, banks, walmart, hospital, etc. There are mountain views from this home and there is a Lake directly across from this home.

I presently live in the home but want to re-locate back to FL. I presently have it listed with a realtor. The listing expires this month on the 20th of Sept. I don't think I can assign the contract as I didn't put "and/or assignee" in the contract. This home also qualifies for a 100% financed USDA guaranteed loan.

I originally had the property priced at $187K but dropped it down to $159,900 to try to get a quick sell. I haven't had any luck in selling this home to a retail buyer. I'm using the same realtor that put this together when I entered into the Lease-Option. The owner of record wants me at this time to either buy the house or sell it.

I'm not able to purchase the home as I've had some life changes and need to return to FL. I put $5K down with the option and have approx. $15K in rehab in the home. The rental market value of this home is $1500/month. I have had difficulty finding good comps because of the uniqueness of the home. My realtor has never supplied any comps for that reason.

My comps reflect an arv of close to $200K. I'm going by the sq. footage, number of bedrooms and baths, lot size, updates and area of the home. The home is in a very nice area of Travelers Rest, right down from the Cliffs.

I don't know if there are any investors here on Bigger Pockets that may have interest in this type of property as either an investment or an equity share partner. I know it wouldn't be a problem to find a buyer with an option, as that's been offered to me on several occasions.

Any advice or interest would be greatly appreciated.

Deborah