Rent to Own or Lease

Years and years ago, I checked out a townhouse owner who wanted to "Rent to Own" his place. Through asking him several questions, I found that he had done this several times before on that one place. He charged them far, far more for the payments than he has to pay, gets a downpayment, and boots out the people if they are a few days late. He has no guilt over this and the people don't have much to fight it with. I think he hopes that he gets to do this and laughs all the way to the bank. Don't do it.

Also, whenever you do buy, remember that the value of your home will go up or down or stay stagnent based on your location. My limited knowledge of Irving is that it has many improvements it needs and has yet to get. You may throw your money away even if you own if you buy in the wrong area, city, etc. As always, get a mentor, do your homework.

Be careful with the rent to own. I had a neighbor that tried that, but the actual owners never gave the money to the mortgage and the house was foreclosed on.

R.,

I would really do your research on rent to own before making that your choice. I have never heard anything good about it. A neighbor was doing rent to own and missed one payment. He had to move and gained no equity for the 11 months he was on time with his payments.

Renting is not a bad option so long as you realize it isn't forever. Renting is better than renting to own, in my opinion. You can find lots of good info if you just google "opinions on rent to own"

Good luck to you!

We started out with a "rent to own" before we bought our home. Please be careful. A friend of mine that is a lawyer almost had a heart attack that he was not able to look over the paperwork first. Apparently, (and I have recently seen this on the news), you move in and pay the owner, thinking that your payments are going toward "owning" the property. The owner is so far behind on their mortgage for the home, that the home goes up for foreclosure and you are stuck with a lock on your front door, no place to live and your money was only helping out someone else who was not paying the mortgage payments. Make sure you check things out first. Good luck!!!

I would be very cautious of a rent-to-own situation. If you choose this route make sure you have an excellent attorney and you understand everything in your contract, there are a lot of risks involved.

Owner financing is a good way to go, if you can find someone willing to do it.

Your best bet is to continuing renting, find something that is month to month or only for 6 months. This way you can continue to work on your credit and continue saving for that down payment.

Good luck.

R.,

My husband Michael works for a company called Hunter Financial Group. He has been in the industry for 15 years and knows everything there is to know. He also knows all the prgrams for someone in your situation. He offers free advice on owning a home, bankruptcy, foreclosure, short sale, how to fix your credit and what you need to focus on, and so much more. I would give him a call and there is no money upfront so you don't have to worry about getting ripped off like some of these mommas have said. They are licensed in 18 states and Texas is one of them. There headquarters is in Arizona. But they do have an office in Texas. Give him a call his number is ###-###-#### x 112 let him know his wife referred you. Or call him on his cell ###-###-####. Hope this helps you.

I tried to rent to own twice and both times I was tricked. The first was through an owner, and just like a previous answer the owner didn't pay the mortgage and the house was foreclosed on while we were living there NIGHTMARE! The next we tried going to what we thought was a reputable leasing company and we paid almost $3000 in deposits and placed in a home the owner never agreed to lease to own. Another NIGHTMARE! I have being researching trying to see if I can sue to get some of our money back and no help with that. I have heard that the state of Texas is looking at outlawing the practice all together, or trying to put serious restrictions on it. I would say do lots of research but I thought I did as well and was still taken advantage of, I would say dont do it at all.