All Forum Posts by: Cory B.

Looks great, Patrick. The pics on Airbnb turned out great.
A TV hanging from the ceiling? Pretty crafty.

@Dave Spooner, thanks for the suggestions.

As I was writing this post it became more and more clear that seller financing was going to be a better way to go.

Good tips about having an attorney look over the contract. I agree, you never know what could pop up in the future to derail a verbal agreement or a loosely worded contract.

A relative of mine is looking at selling his house in Las Vegas. I told him I might be interested in buying it to use as my primary residence. We talked and he suggested a Lease Option might be a better route. Although, he did mention seller financing as also being an option.

His view is that the Vegas housing market, and lending in general, may get shaky in the next 6 to 12 months and that it may be difficult for me to get traditional financing in the future.

He wouldn't want to have to repossess the house if I'm not able to get a traditional bank loan. He doesn't want any bad feelings from a deal gone wrong to harm our relationship - which I think makes sense. He does fairly well financially and is willing to give me a bit of a price discount.

His suggestion is that, at the end of a one year lease, I could exercise my Option and buy the house if I'm able to get financing. Or, if the market has tanked, he may have to adjust the price down a bit in order for traditional financing to work for me. Additionally, if the market has tanked too much, he may want to hold on to the house and continue renting it out to avoid selling it at too low of a price.

It's a three bed, two bath, 1,400 sq ft home with a pool that would probably be put on the market right now for about $320,000. He's willing to sell it to me for around $290,000. He still owes $170,000 on it.

My original thought was to have him carry the note. The kitchen is a little rough. I was going to remodel it before heading to a bank to get traditional financing. But, remodeling the kitchen isn't really an option if we're just leasing the house.

I'm wondering if the Lease Option angle makes sense or if I should push for him to provide seller financing now. Any opinions?

Here's one for Washington State:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

If link above doesn't work, search the BiggerPockets "FilePlace" for "Washington State Lease Agreement".

@Ali Garced, @Paul Kalbfleisch

Try Lesli Todd at LT Investments & Consulting.
tucsontaxaccounting
She was in attendance at one of the recent AZREIA meetings and had a info booth set up.

@Ola Dantis. Great tip! I've been looking at City-Data for a few different metrics but had not been looking at renter percentage. Thanks!

So far we're at 7 votes for doing a HELOC and 5 votes for selling the house.
Zero votes for a refi.

I really appreciate all of the input!

@Amit Saini. I don't think raising rents is an option, at least not enough to make any sort of a difference.

The kitchen could use an update - although its not terrible. I'm not sure I want to invest that much money into it right now.
Expanding the house would be very expensive. A new portion of foundation would be required - as well as all of the permits.

@Chris Greiner. A refi is no longer an option for me. I'm looking at selling the house or getting a HELOC.

@George Liu. Yes, Depreciation recapture. I'm not sure how much that would amount to after renting the house for 1.5 years. I should talk with my CPA about that.