Currently a Tenant, I want to purchase the house I’m renting.

[Austin Wells]

My wife and I are currently renting a home that we would be interested in purchasing as our first live in rental.

Our landlord lives out of the country, and utilizes a local property management company.

2 questions:

1. Is it within our right to have a inspector come look through and inspect the house without telling the landlord or property manager? Would an inspector even do that? The logic for this is that we could move quickly with an offer knowing what the inspection shows.

2. In your opinion, should I work with the property manager to communicate our interest to the landlord or should I leave him out and try to communicate with the landlord directly?

The property manager does a fine job, I just don’t want him to shut me out because of him potentially losing a client.

Thanks for your input!

[Wayne Brooks]

You can contact the owner directly even though the PM may collect a commission on the sale anyway, depending on how his contract is worded with the owner.  See if he has any interest first, and if he has a price in mind, then proceed from there.

[Steve Maginnis]

Hello @Austin Wells.  I love these kind of deals, because there is a lot of potential to be creative.  First, I would definitely not go through the PM.  It is not likely they have an agreement to represent the owner in case they sell, but if you go through them, they would likely try to negotiate this in advance.  IF they do have an agreement, it will be on the Seller anyway.  I would try to see if they are willing to do owner financing on the property.  If you have a good payment history, you can structure the sale terms to be attractive to the Seller, especially since they will not have to pay to manage the property anymore and repairs will be your responsibility.  That's a good selling point for owner financing.  Or work out a lease/purchase with a set amount of what you pay going towards interest.  Or a land contract/contract for deed.  By having them finance, it keeps the expense off your credit report, which frees up your debt to income for future deals.  There's a ton to consider, but if the Seller is interested in selling, you have a lot of options to come up with something you both agree to.  

Regarding the inspection, it likely will not be an issue to order one in advance.  However, I don't see the point, as you will have due diligence time to have the inspections done after you go under contract.  No sense spending the money if you don't know if you can work out a deal.  Best of luck.  

[Jarrod Covey]

Inspections can be very expensive and they don't actually address the issue. If I were you, I would call out different trades - i.e. plumber, electrician etc - relative to the area of the house you are concerned about. 

Go direct to the owner, more parties involved in a transaction creates more mouths to feed pushing your potential buy price up.