I have been promoting lease options for almost a year now and have been working my butt off getting tenant/buyers to take the properties I have and finding the ones they want. It has been a waste of time to find specific properties for tenant/buyers. So I had a chat with my favorite lender, and we came up with a plan.
When a prospective tenant/buyer calls looking for a specific type of house in a particular part of town, we have them fill out one of our credit applications. We then send it off to “our lender” who will tell us what he’d loan them and when, etc.
Once this is in place, we have the tenant/buyer go out and look for “their” home in their price range. We then negotiate with the seller, buy the house, and lease option it to the tenant/buyer.
The lease option price is 5% over the current appraised price, even though we likely got it for less. The option consideration from the tenant/buyer is sufficient to cover any cash requirements of the purchase.
That way, we are buying with no money down and have a tenant up front, who may or may not buy the property a year or so later. Any profit over the 5% comes from my making a deal with the owner. I offer them a fast and clean closing because I use my favorite title company that will do it my way.