I am Realtor in Boulder, CO. and a friend of mine has a 2 bed condo and 2 bed townhome as rental properties he is looking to off load as he and his family have decided to live in Germany full time. Both properties have been rented consistently for over a decade. I want to start building my own portfolio of rentals and see this as an opportunity to get started. I asked him about selling to me using seller financing and he's open to it.
So, how do I approach this? Ideally I would like to buy both, but at least getting the lower priced condo would be a great start for me. I have about 15K in savings I can give him up front. The condo is mortgaged at only $500/month and rents at $1600 and I could buy it for $320K. The townhome has a $1600/month mortgage and he rented it recently for $1800 (desperate measure as his long time tenant moved out), I could buy for $420K. Both are in good condition and I actually helped him update the condo just 6 months ago.
Seller financing is pretty much non-existent in my market, so I have no experience with it. I've reached out to my mortgage guy as well and we are going to meet up today. From what I understand, we can basically hash out any arrangement we like, but I want to make sure we have a fair deal for both of us. Anyone here have experience with this and any advice on what to do and what to avoid? Thanks for the help.