Rent to Own - Finding the Option Fee

When we are putting together rent to own deals sometimes our tenant-buyers don't have that much cash available for an option fee. Many tenant-buyers live check to check which doesn't leave a lot of room for saving up. Or they haven't yet had time to save up an option fee as they were trying to deal with other bills, or just recently started working again. Whatever the reason, just because they don't have a lot of cash doesn't mean you can't still work something out.

If a rent to own tenant-buyer is qualified for a lease option property in every other way but just doesn't have enough money for the option fee - DON'T KILL THE DEAL! Work something out. Get creative in helping them find ways to come up with more cash for the lease option fee.

What are some ways?

• Borrow money from relatives or friends. They could either borrow all of the money from one person or they could borrow smaller amounts from several. If they could borrow just $500 from 4 relatives that isn't all that much for each relative but added together it's $2,000. That can go a long way towards a rent to own option fee.
• Sell stuff on Craigslist or Ebay. If they have some things they don't use very much anymore have them sell it off. Most of us jsut accumulate stuff instead of selling it so it would be a good time for them to clean out the closets and so forth and find some sellables.
• Have a garage sale. Some things are not worth enough individually to be owrth selling on the internet, but they could have a local sale to sell those things and help come up with some money.
• Cash in on some jewlry. Gold is at a high price right now and if they have some things they don't want anymore it would be a good time to cash in on the high price of gold.

These are just a few ideas for lease option tenant-buyers to come up with an option fee. If a tenant-buyer is relucatant to put in the effort to raise money for their rent to own option fee they need to ask themselves how serious are they about wanting the house?

Take a look at this video clip where Justin Ryan talks about helping rent to own buyers come up with an option fee.