Called the hand-painted RENT TO OWN sign, and the guy showing it doesn't own it

His whole position is 45,000 of price spread, and he was handing you 250 a month against it, so 6,000 over two years, 9,000 over three. That's fine arithmetic. The problem is he'd have promised you a closing he can only deliver if his own option is still alive and his own seller performs. Two options stacked, and the guy at the bottom of the stack is the tenant.

I'm working through licensing right now and the thing that jumped out is him marketing a house he doesn't own to a stranger who called a sign. Whether that trips any licensing rule depends entirely on the state and I would not guess at it. Somebody's real estate commission has an opinion though.

You lied to get in the door and got a better education than I got from two months of videos. I might steal this.

Dumb question I would not ask out loud in a room. If he's got an option to buy at 240 and he's offering it to you at 285, is that just his profit, or is he supposed to tell you the number he's paying?

@compass the 45 is his profit and generally nobody has to volunteer their own purchase price. Whether any disclosure is required varies by state and about a dozen states don't even make sale prices public, so a tenant-buyer often can't look it up. That's the part I'd want a lawyer's read on before I signed anything.

The bathroom floor moving is the detail I can't get past. Who fixes that in year one of a rent to own, the guy in khakis or you?

@wren in every one of these I've heard about the answer is the tenant, and it's in the paperwork, and the tenant reads it after the fact.

I spent six months researching and somehow never thought to just call the sign. That's embarrassing in a useful way.

I'd have asked whether his option with the owner was recorded in any form. If it isn't, and the owner sells to somebody else next spring, what exactly does he hand you?

He said he'd find out and call back. That's the whole story right there. He's not malicious, he's just improvising with somebody's housing.

Went back over the numbers. There are two separate options in this arrangement and if the first one fails the second one is worthless? That seems like a lot of risk to sit on top of.

@juniper roughly, yes, and it's worse than worthless because you've also been paying above-market rent for the privilege. The 1,750 on a house that would rent for maybe 1,500 is the credit. You're funding your own down payment through the rent.

I've been the guy in khakis, more or less. Not on a lease option, on a wholesale, but same shape. You get in the middle of something and then somebody asks the one question about the middle and you have nothing. It's a bad Saturday.

Ranch with a soft bathroom floor means the tub surround has been leaking for years and there's more under there. Priced at 285 in a locked option, whoever ends up owning it inherits that. Ask me how I know what's under a floor that moves.

@harrow subfloor and probably a joist. Two grand if you're lucky and the framing is dry, a lot more if it isn't. Not a thing you want to discover in month three of a lease where you're the one holding the repairs.

The sublease version of this is a headache nobody prices, at least going by what I deal with. The occupant thinks they're a buyer, behaves like an owner, and calls you like a tenant. All three at once, and the paperwork usually only describes one of them.

I've been analyzing for eleven months and what actually got me somewhere was apparently a phone call and a Saturday morning. Noted, and mildly annoying.

The reason he never called back is he asked somebody and got an answer he didn't like. @marlow if you ever want the owner side of this, you have the exact list of questions now, and you got it for the price of a lie and a drive.