A seller who wanted her house rented for two years before it sold

At an open house, a seller who stayed rather than leaving, as sellers are usually advised to, can end up asking the visiting investor a very different question than expected: would you rent this house for two years and buy it at the end. A common version of this situation is a seller who has already moved elsewhere, does not want the house sitting empty through a season, and has turned down one offer she considered insulting. Say she wants 340 for the house, would take 2,100 a month in rent, and would credit some portion of that rent toward the purchase, details still to be worked out. The conversation usually turns on one number: the price two years out. Pricing 340 today as 340 in two years is a materially different deal than pricing 340 in two years as something closer to today's value discounted back, say 315. Sellers are rarely walked through that distinction by their own agents, who tend to mention a lease option once and move on without explaining the mechanics. A deal like this does not always get done, often because the rent on offer does not cover the payment an investor would want covered if they ended up walking away at the end of the term. But the most flexible negotiating conversations tend to happen exactly this way, informally, after the open house traffic has cleared, not in a formal offer process.