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Posted over 3 years ago

Some Wins with Creative Financing- Lease Options

As an investor, life has mostly been a bowl of cherries since I got into sandwich lease options a few decades ago. I hope you are finding similar success today in your investing business and are able to share with everyone you know!

The seller must win, the investor in the middle must win, and the tenant/buyer must win.

When everyone wins, the result becomes three bowls of cherries to be shared with even more people – there is nothing better!

Today, I want to share a couple of success stories my students have had with sandwich lease options. These were completed by different investors in different parts of the country. The sellers’ and buyers’ names have been changed, but the numbers and details reflect the specific transactions. These deals will inspire and show you how you too can be successful by creating unique solutions for motivated sellers and grateful buyers.

Frank’s First Sandwich Lease Option Deal

Let’s start at the beginning with a student’s first sandwich lease option deal. It’s always inspiring when a student’s first deal comes away as such a strong win-win-win for everyone. Here is how Frank described it.

“Sara had a house in Fowlerville that she kept after her divorce. She couldn’t stand to continue living with the memories from the marriage, so she bought another house in Fenton, closer to where she works. She had the house “For Sale by Owner” and “For Rent.” She wasn’t excited about being a landlord, but she was looking for debt relief in a quick way. I called on her “For Rent” ad and we met to discuss some options. I agreed to start paying her $1,100 per month immediately (because that is what she needed to cover her expenses) and for $1,000 I bought an option to buy at $155,000 sometime within the next three years. I put about $300 into the house to fix a few things, plus a home inspection and title search, so my costs were minimal; around $500.

Two days after I signed with the Sara (the owner), a tenant/buyer from my accumulated list paid me an option fee of $5,000 and the first month’s rent of $1,195 to move in. The lease term was 18 months and the buy-out was $169,900. There is no lease money being applied to the purchase price. The lease started several months ago and they have been paying every single month early. They have never called me with an issue of any kind, so it is going about as smoothly as I could ever hope. I liked this deal because the owner was very happy that I took the house off of her hands, and she always receives rent from me by the first of the month. The tenant/buyers were very happy because they were able to get themselves and their 3 children from an apartment into a nice house on an acre of land. This is a “win” for me also because I made money on the front end with the option fee of $5,000 plus $95.00 monthly cash flow, and the whole deal will make over $16,000. Not bad for my first deal!”

~ F. Purdue -Michigan

Frank’s is a great story showing how you too will be successful by creating unique solutions for motivated sellers that also make your buyers happy.

Shannon Works Well With Realtors

This outcome actually has four winners when you count the agent. I’m telling you, there are a lot of great stories from students and this is only one of them. I only wish I could share more student success stories that come from sandwich lease options. Here’s how Shannon’s story started.

Shannon received a call from a realtor that she had spoken to over a year earlier. The realtor had kept Shannon’s card. This particular house had been listed for six months without luck. The seller had moved out of state, leaving the home empty for the last four months. Shannon was able to lock in very flexible terms to create a terrific deal for her while relieving the seller of his burden and allowing a new buyer a fresh start. The rest is in her own words:

“This deal came as a referral from one of the realtors that I talked to OVER A YEAR AGO!!! She called me out of the blue from my card that she had kept. Here are the numbers:

$700 per month -Lease option price from seller

$850 per month –Lease option price to buyer

$150 per month –profit

$132,000 Purchase price from seller (for as long as I want… I can buy this house for this price in a month or in ten years; he didn’t care either way)

$159,000 Sales Price to buyer within 24 months

I also got a $7,000 option fee from the lady up front.

Not a bad deal, huh? This is almost a $30,000 deal. The great thing about it is that the buyer has pretty decent credit. She could qualify for a loan on this property right now if she wanted to, but is going to wait about a year to get her score up from a previous divorce (her husband had a few late pays). Not only that, but if she doesn’t pay me, it’s no big deal. I’ll just do this whole thing all over again. I also negotiated with the seller that if for any reason I have a tenant that stops paying me that I don’t have to make payments until I get another tenant in the property.

This property was listed on the MLS for 6 months at $155K with no luck. The fact that I offered it on a lease option and had a pretty good marketing plan allowed me to get MORE than a realtor could get. (The house was in great overall condition, it was just a little bit outdated compared to the rest of the neighborhood.) The seller had moved to Texas and it was sitting empty for 4 of those 6 months, so he was obviously motivated. Thanks for showing me the ropes on this one Wendy! I love it!”

~ Shannon McLeay, Missouri

Shannon’s story shows the value of establishing relationships with Realtors.

Those are merely two of the hundreds and thousands of successful student sandwich lease option stories out there. It’s a proven road to Financial Freedom and a Wealthy Retirement.

Wendy’s Ethics Rule

Don’t do sandwich lease options if you don’t intend to follow through on the transaction. Do what you say you will do and when you say you will do it. Help keep real estate investing an honest profession.



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