Ahh, I see. It sounded like they were in arrears with the rent because they slipped up with the payments recently. They've made a bit of a mess of your house judging by the pics. It's so frustrating when tenants do that. A previous family we rented a house to made such a mess of the place... I remember we had to about steam clean the house before it was habitable again.
Many of our tenants have ended up purchasing the house they were renting. Land Contracts are a way for us to continue to get monthly payments and them to become property owners. These folks rented from us for about 4 years before they went downhill -- along with the rest of the economy. That's the main reason we let things go so far. We trusted they would work to catch up. Nope!
I'm looking into a rent-to-buy option, but with the understanding from the start that I will purchase the property in full at the earliest possible date. I'm not sure how that is going to work out re the usual rental agreements, I guess I'll take responsibility for the property from when I start "renting" it. It's a good way to buy a place when you can't get a bank loan. The economy hit the property market and home owners hard. I've been watching the developments in Ireland and wow... the number of semi-complete dwellings up for sale for low prices are just depressing... Some of the properties over there dropped to 20% of their original asking price.
Our Land Contracts have a three year term. At that time the buyers can switch to a conventional loan or stay with us OR we can tell them to get a conventional loan and pay us off. Three years of good payments usually make a good impression on loan institutions. The contract may be renewed at the balance due for another three years. Only one of our tenants/buyers switched to a conventional loan and that was after 9 years with us and because of problems she developed financially. I've never done a rent to own contract, but I'd imagine you both agree on a purchase price at the start. All necessary improvements, taxes, utilities, etc. are paid for by you and deducted from the amount you will owe. If you decide not to buy, the payments belong to the owner, but you should get something back for necessary work you had done. Necessary being things like roof, furnace. . . It is a great way for people to get a start in home ownership. That's one reason we've chosen to help our tenants this way. Besides, they've lived there and know everything -- good and bad -- about the property before buying.
I'm going to rent with buying in mind and I will have to make my mind up about a property before I move in. With this rent-to-buy arrangement you are usually required to put down a deposit of around 10% and then pay a slightly higher than normal monthly rent, all of which gets deducted off the asking price, which is agreed on before the contract is signed. They usually give the tenants 3 years to come up with the balance and during this time some landlords treat it as an ordinary rental and pay for the upkeep of the property etc. That's things we'll have to sort out when the time comes... An agent in Ireland suggested we go that route as property owners are getting more and more desperate to sell and more and more will agree to something like this. If the buyer/tenant bail out of the agreement they get to keep the deposit and rents paid, so they don't lose anything. If the tenant proceeds to buy the property, they got their buyer.
Off topic... Somehow it seems like i have more and more stuff to store in the bathroom and never enough space. Any ideas, pictures of nice ways to store? No plastic please...
