How to Get Sellers to Call You and Offer you Their Home for a Rent-to-Own

Now that we’ve discussed ways to find rent-to-own homes, what would you say to having rent-to-own sellers call you and offer you their home? That’s right. You can just sit by the phone and wait for sellers to call you and tell you about their rent-to-own home.

Many of these sellers will not have their homes listed with a real estate agent, so if you are working with an agent, this may not be for you.

The advantage of having the seller call you is that you already know he is willing to consider rent-to-own. You just need to figure out if his home and terms will work for you.

“Alright Wendy! So how do I do this?”

Posting ads is a way to get sellers to come to you.

Posting Ads

The first way is by posting ads about yourself and rent-to-own. Here is one example:

This is a sample ad of what you would put in the newspaper where space is an issue – the more space you use the more it costs you. These ads though are just enough to get the attention of a home seller who has started to think about what choices he must make if he doesn’t sell soon.

You can also post an ad on FREE sites like Craigslist, Yahoo! groups and Google groups. I also recommend posting some flyers on community bulletin boards as well as posting flyers using these FREE Internet sites. These methods are much cheaper than the newspaper classified ads and may be all you need.

The whole purpose of these ads is to filter out the home sellers who don’t want tenants and to get the ones that would consider tenants to call you.

Here are some questions you can ask sellers once they call you:

• Where is your home located?
• Can you tell me what price you are looking to get for your home?
• How many bedrooms and baths does it have?
• Do you know what the rental rates are in your area? About how much were you thinking for monthly rent?

Not only will these questions help you gain more information about the sellers, it will also help you build rapport with the seller as well.  Check out my book Rent-to-Buy to learn more about other ways to get sellers to call you.

Rent to Buy is your hands-on guide to buying your next home as a rent to own.  You can get your next home NOW without having to qualify for a mortgage until later.  To Learn more about Option Agreements purchase your copy of Rent-to-Buy today.

Feel free to comment and let me know of other ways you  have sellers calling you!

If you are in the difficult situation of falling behind on your mortgage payments and trying to sell your home, offering it on a rent-to-own basis may help you stay out of foreclosure. I wish I could say for certain, because I hate to see people lose their homes to the bank, but obviously it’s no guarantee. The last thing lenders want right now is to foreclose on your home. They have gotten pretty flexible in working with homeowners to find solutions. Be sure to include them in the process when trying to find a resolution. As you read on you can evaluate whether you think selling your home as a rent-to-own will help you. Critical factors to consider are:

• Monthly Payment Adjusting Up? If your monthly payment has adjusted upwards, will you be able to rent your home to a tenant-buyer for enough to cover the new payment? If not, you will have to cover the difference yourself or get the lender to agree to a reduced payment. There are lenders that will work with you on your interest rate. This is called a loan modification. They usually won’t change your balance but they might change the interest rate and length of loan. Talk to your lender to discuss your options.

• Home Prices Dropping? Do you live in one of the areas where home prices have dropped dramatically? If so, is your home worth much less than your current loan amount? If this is the case you won’t be able to sell it to a tenant-buyer for enough to pay off your mortgage. Do you have the extra money to pay off the difference? Do you need to consider foreclosure? Maybe a short sale is your solution versus a rent-to-own. A short sale is when you get your mortgage company to accept a lesser amount on the payoff of your mortgage than you owe, when you sell your home. This is called “shorting” the mortgage. Many people and lenders have had to consider this alternative with the housing market decline.

• Behind on Your Payments? How much are you currently behind in payments? You will need to bring them current one way or another to stop the foreclosure. The option fee from your tenant-buyer may be enough to cover this. If it isn’t, you might be able to use the option fee to cover part of it and then establish a catch-up plan with your lender.

Yes, you do have choices other than the traditional way of selling your home! Obviously this is the part where I sing the praises of rent-to-own.

Want to learn more about selling your home as a rent to own?  See Wendy Patton’s book, Rent to Sell, Your Hands on Guide to Sell Your Home When Buyers Are Scarce.