Option On Land Soon To Go Commercial
I have been given the opportunity to rent a mobile home on 1.5 acres of land that will soon go commercial.
This is convenient since the property where I am currently living was sold and I have been given less than 30 days to vacate.
The owner at the new location ... with the MH and land wants $30,000 for the whole package. I am not familiar with rent to own options ... but my underlying goal (which he doesn't have to know) is to later get it rezoned commerical and resale. The rent on the MH is $300/month.
In the meantime ... I get a somewhat livable place on short notice (there are hygeine issues and I have chosen to purchase laminate flooring really cheap because he will not do anything about the carpeting which is nasty and beyond the efforts of a steam cleaner ... see residential post for more). This guy seems very uncomfortable and unskilled as a landlord and says he "doesn't need the land." It is clear that I have to spend some money to get it suitable to my standards of living conditions (even if it is temporary). I don't want to pay him rent and be stuck with fixing everything that he doesn't want to put any effort into. And good landlords and good living space are hard to come by these days, especially on quick demand.
I am not ready for a downpayment on such a short notice. I do, however, need to secure a solid deal where I am not losing money to rent and paying for my standards of interior cleanup without some hope of return for my efforts ... and I want to have some protection against having this happen to me again (sale of property/forced quick move).
How can I present this purchase option to the guy solidly so there is no confusion and he doesn't get cold feet? He's thinking downpayment with owner financing (loan with interest) ... I'm thinking of the rent going towards a set purchase price. He's already thrown up the shield of "let me talk to my attorney about that one" because he's not familiar with it. How do I present this and put some slave on the situation? The idea, as always, is not to use a conventional lender.
Since he seems uncomfortable / unfamiliar with the lease purchase option, why not compromise. See if he will let you do work on the property as your downpayment. With owner financing, you still have a deal... just make sure the price and interest rates will work for you. Explain you are going to spend $x to replace carpet, and $x for this , and $x for that, so you would like a total of $3x to be credited as your downpayment.
Good Luck!
Hey MK,
I used to live in Paron, Ar. I thought that no one had ever even heard of it because it is so small (town has a popultion of negative 100 people) :-D . Good luck on getting out of there.[ Edited by JDC21 on Date 10/22/2004 ]