Purchasing Your First Home With A Rent To Own Option

Purchasing your first home can be a very exciting and nerve racking time! There are so many things that could go wrong: your loan doesn’t go through in time, you can’t come up with the down payment or you are outbid by another prospective home owner.

For many, the rent to own option can eliminate much of the stress and anxiety that first time homebuyers experience. This article will explore some of the upsides and downsides to buying your first home with a rent to own option.

The Buyer’s Upside

If you are deciding to purchase your first home, this is a very exciting time for you. There are many reasons to purchase a home, and 99% of them are because of happy, exciting events: a growing family, a new job, a promotion etc.

With these exciting events can come some uncertainty. What if that new job doesn’t last? What if your growing family doesn’t really fit in with the other neighborhood families? These are all real and valid concerns that the rent to own option can eliminate.

By renting (or leasing) before you buy your house, you are able to move one step closer to taking on the responsibility of home ownership, without getting yourself locked too deeply into something that you can’t back out of.

Not sure if your kids will like the neighborhood? Rent to own for a year or two. Test the neighborhood out, test the house out and know for certain.

Not sure if the new job will last? Instead of putting all your eggs into one basket, why not work towards a down payment and mortgage, while still having the option to resell the Lease Option to another buyer?

The rent to own option is fantastic for first time home buyers because it offers the buyer more freedom and less risk that traditional mortgage financing options.

The Buyer’s Downside

The largest disadvantage to first time home buyers in taking the rent to own option is that they could potentially lose their investment with little protection. Let’s look at a potential worst case scenario example:

If you were to try and purchase your first home using the rent to own option, typically you would be assessed a small, non-refundable, option fee (something around $2000).

You would also be asked to pay an extra monthly rate. This extra monthly payment, to be paid in addition to your monthly rent, would be payments that went directly to the house. For our example, say that you are paying $300 extra, per month.

If, after 24 months, you decided to back out on the contract (reselling it to another buyer), for whatever reason, you could potentially lose the extra money that you were paying as a down payment.

In other words, you would lose the $2000 + $300 per month for 24 months. This seems like a lot of money, but let’s compare this with purchasing a home using the traditional mortgage financing route.

Rent To Own Versus Traditional Financing

If you were to purchase a home, you would need a down payment. The larger this down payment, the lower your interest rate on the loan and the lower your monthly payments. Let’s assume that you put down a $50,000 payment on a $200,000 home. The down payment is now wrapped up in the house and you will begin to make the monthly mortgage payments.

Now what happens if you don’t like the neighborhood or you lose your new job? You are forced to sell. The current economy is a buyer’s market. Translation: You are going to have to sell your home very cheaply in order to unload the mortgage.

Chances are, you are going to sell it for much less than you bought it for. You will have lost the $50,000 down payment and you may even come away from the deal owing money on the mortgage.

The fact is, the rent to own option is a fantastic option for first time home buyers. The risk is low, and for younger families, or those who are making their first attempt at purchasing a home, a low risk option is a smart option.

Please take a second to check some of our listings to see what kinds of homes are waiting for you at https://www.rentuntilyouown.com/.