I have done agreements of sale. Fairly simple document where if all terms and conditions are met only then do they get title. Terms of default relegating them back to tennant only status with no legal costs involved. Actually they reamain as little more than tennants during the life of the agreement anyways.

With a large enough downpayment this may be a useful vehicle. Either I was lucky or fortunate. The ones I put out caused us no grief. This in fact was a very common way of vending things many years ago. Terms like rent to buy where very common. My qualifier was quite simple.

If they had paid rent for years with no trouble and the carrying costs of the transaction where equal or less I could see no real risk. I of course had a look at their general characters as well.

If you need the funds now you can get a loan that their monthly payments cover over the time frame. The banks where considerate in giving me a very low rate of interest on those deals. This whole area is a judgement thing but I proved many times it can work well.

Examine the situation carefully. You have a potential buyer with a large portion down is a real help. They have something additional to lose by not compying with the terms. Usually there are many clauses in the agreement such as they cannot transfer your interest without either paying it out or you allow it. You can capitalise on the interest spread as well if you wish. Used mobile homes do not usually get really cheap interest rates.The agreement does not specify other than a certain payment for a certain amount of time. What is included in this is not specified other than the terms of payment until satisfied. So you of course calculate the going interest rate into it.

Banks will only loan you money if you can prove you don't really need it. They've always been that way. They're worse now,becaust they can't make much money on the interest, so why take the risk?

Providentially, a buyer has appeared with money for this thing. The papers have been signed; earlier this week I received a on-refundable $1000 earnest money check which went straight to the bank and today they delivered a cashier's check for the balance.

Their carpenter comes tomorrow to start disassembling the porches and getting everything ready for the movers to get it gone. It should be out of here by next week.

Sweet! Gotta love when the best case scenario actually happens.

Absolutely.

This was a win-win. The family buying the home lost theirs to a fire about two weeks ago...100 year old farm house, electrical fire, high wind...completely consumed in <10 minutes.

They got out with the clothes on their backs and shoes on their feet. They have good credit: bank loaned them money to make purchase contengent on insurance settlement. They now have a decent place to live for about $25/sqft. A real bargain.

I have reduced my property tax burden over $600/yr, cut an electric meter off my bill which is at the least $30/mo (I had three out here), trimmed my insurance outlay by more than $750/yr and converted a depreciating asset into cash.

It's all good.

Movers will be here by noon.

Nice. Hope it all went well!!

Gone.