How does Renting-To-Own a property work?
Our Rent-To-Own program consists of two separate parts, a Lease and an
Option. These together give rise to the other commonly used name for this
real estate strategy: “Lease Option”. Simply put, our client rents the
property from us as a normal tenant would, and also has the option to buy
the property at a pre-determined price.
The Lease portion of our program is a simple Lease, and we will often use
the Provincial Government’s own version, if one exists.
The Option portion is where, as they say, “the rubber meets the road”. It is
designed to work with the Lease and requires all aspects of a Lease to be in
good standing. The Option is where the client is granted, for a fee, the
Option to Purchase the property at set price, and for a set length of time.
It also sets out additional obligations and rewards for our client.
The additional responsibilities are along the order of “perform all
maintenance and repairs on the property”. In this way we ensure our clients
are well established in the mindset and routines of a home owner, so the
transition from renter to owner is natural and easy. Our client is further
rewarded, when they perform these obligations, with a monthly credit towards
their down payment, which builds until they go to purchase the property.
The most common length of time for our Rent-To-Own program is between 1 and
5 years. This seems to be enough time for our clients to fix whatever
credit, or debt issues stop them from purchasing today, and it’s also enough
time for us to help them save their down payment.
It is our intention that ALL our clients have the capability and means to
purchase the home they Rent-To-Own from us. We carefully screen our clients
and pre-qualify them for the future purchase, usually before they’ve even
seen the property! We also ensure through the monthly credit we give our
client, that they have sufficient funds for their down payment when they go
to buy the property. Furthermore, we aim for our clients to want to buy the
property they rent from us - the most effective way we have found to do this
is to sell our clients the home at below fair market value; our clients
actually make a profit when they work with us!
Over the years we have run our Rent-To-Own program, we have helped many
people help themselves to go from renting a property, to owning their own
home. While we treat our Rent-To-Own program as a profitable business, it is
also our pleasure to help people achieve their dream of home ownership; we
feel it is a way we can give something back to the community.
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