Lease to Purchase Deal - Should I Take the Deal?

[Jeremy Mahan]

Does anyone have experience with lease to purchase deals?  A neighbor of mine has a house for sale for $145,000.  He said he may be open to selling it as a lease to purchase for $900/mo for 20 yrs, or 240 months.  That comes out to $216,000.  I believe I can easily rent it out for a minimum of $1200/mo and possibly up to $1500/mo with a few touch-ups to the house.  I would be looking at $300-$600 cash flow each month.  I just bought a property about a month ago so I don't currently have the funds for the traditional 20% down on another property.  If I can acquire this one now, should I take the offer?  I don't know much about lease to purchase deals.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Adam Gollatz]

If you took out a 20 yr mortgage on 145,000 and paid 900 a month, that would work out to be 4.3% I think most people would agree is a great rate to get money at. I would work out the other terms of the deal, mainly, what happens if you want to sell or get out of the contract 3 to 4 years down the road.