Rent to Own Article

Pretty good rent to own article, things to note:

In the current market, lease-option agreements can grow the pool of potential buyers by attracting purchasers who are not quite ready to qualify for a mortgage. They also can be attractive for would-be buyers who have relocated and are trying to sell homes in other parts of the country.

Also a great overview of how the lease to own process works:

Lease-option contracts are written for individual homes and situations, so there are few fixed rules. However, both parties usually agree on a few general criteria.

The contract usually states that the buyer has to close on the residence within certain time period, usually a year or two. Homeowners avoid longer contracts, because of the risk of losing too much on the upside should real estate values appreciate quickly.

Also, buyers are required to put down a hefty upfront payment, usually between $3,000 and $5,000 for a typical home. In some cases, that money is put toward the eventual down payment.

The buying party also pays rent, giving the owner a monthly income stream to pay or offset the mortgage. Typically, a portion of each payment is set aside for the down payment.

Hotpads.com Feed Up and Running

Our hotpads.com property feed is up and running. We were relying on a third party to feed our listings and it wasn't quite working the way we wanted. So effective tonight your property will be fed along one of three property feeds. You will be able to view a link on your property in the control panel under the link titled 'view marketing'

Rent
Just straight rental feed. If your property is listed as just a rental property it will be included in this feed.

Rent to Own
Rent to own/Lease Option feed. This feed is for properties that are listed as rent to own. If your property is listed as a rental and a rent to own then your property will be included on this feed and not included on the rental feed.

For Sale/Owner Financing
For Sale Feed. Your owner financed listed properties will be on this feed.

So if you list a property for rent, rent to own, and owner financing your property will be included on two feeds. The Rent/Rent to Own feed is essentially the same except the rent to own feed contains more points about rent to own and leads the potential resident to these domains.

One more point is our feeds run in the early morning hours, so if you enter a prooperty today you should be able to view your property via the marketing page the following day.

This is the first of many feeds that we are now handling ourselves. We should have the bulk of all our feeds completed here in the next three weeks.