Rent to buy

[Anya68]

Hi all

First post so hope I'm doing it right.

We viewed a house today, our second viewing, it went on market 2 years ago at 490k, its now priced around 250k. Its been empty most of the time and at moment has a few foreign guys renting on a weekly basis.

We have a council house in an estate and we want to move as we have a very troublesome neighbour, and in general the area is rough. We are fortunate that DH is due to recieve a substantial court award in the Autumn so we will be able to purchase our own home.

I spoke to the EA and asked if the vendor would accept our offer now of 250k and allow us to rent the property until our funds are in, the EA seemed to think it was a good idea, couple have separated and have moved on to new homes, just need to dispose of the marital home properly.

What do ye think of this, if you were a vendor would you consider it?

Anya

If its been on the market that long and they've dropped the price that much, I'd say they'd definitely consider it. They might want some assurance that you do intend to buy before chucking their current tenants out though.
Good luck.

Not unless I had some sort of proof of the substantial court award.

sorry i am being dim (sunday morning...)

• are you saying you will rent the property from vendors and then buy - unti you have a deposit? i presume you dont have a mortgage offer of any sort?

presuming the above, we thougth about doing this as we couldnt sell until a certain date as we were locked into a mortgage and the buyers offered to rent for 3 weeks until that date.

We were initially quite up for it (as was EA unsurprisingly) but our solicitor said we were absolutely bonkers to be considering it.

so i think your vendors might be in favour but they might get different advice from solicitor.

i think the alarm bells that would go throw my mind would be that if you cant afford it now will you be able to afford it in a few months time?

Thanks fo all the opinions, we will not be getting a mortgage, we know the figure that Dh will be getting, and it will cover the purchase price. I know of at least three people lately who have done the same, one of them had to pay a deposit, the other vendors were just happy to get even rental money at this stage and not have place empty.

Quite possible that their solicitor will put them off, we'll have to wait and see. At least we have a roof over our heads for the moment.

Anya

Hi HerHonesty,
why did your solicitor advise against it? Could he not have drawn up a contract that said that your buyers can rent for x weeks and then are contracted to complete on x date when your contract had run out.

Can't think why he would be so against it either, esp in this market as houses lying empty everywhere. I think it should work out fine if the proper paerwork is in place

Anya

P.S No word back from EA yet on our offer

Well the Ea rang after 6 to say that the vendor would def agree to our proposal, he was hoping for a bit more but the other bid has pulled out, he had bid 235k. Naturally enough he wants some kind of assurance that funds are on way so we will speak to the solicitor tomorrow and see what he can do.

I'm not getting my hopes up too much, and wondering are we daft to give up a council property even though we have hated it here since the day we got it 8 yrs ago

Anya