Rent-to-Own Why NOT!?!?! It makes sense

Q: What do you mean by Rent-to-Own?  

A: Actually, “Rent-to-Own” is quite simple. A contract is signed between You and the Seller for an agreed price, length of time, (usually between 1 and 3 years), although we have seen contracts for a longer period of time. You pay a down payment of usually $3,000 and $20,000. You don’t have to qualify for a mortgage from the bank until the end of the contract because the Seller leaves his/her mortgage on the home. Part of your rent goes towards that mortgage. You also pay a monthly amount of usually between $100 and $300 towards a down payment fund. This fund builds over the life of the contract to add to the down payment. At the end of the term you find your own bank financing and pay the Seller out.

Note: For all intent and purposes, this becomes your home.

Q: Why are these homes offered as “Rent-to-Own” rather than just sold.
Is there something wrong with them?

A: In British Columbia, the real estate market tends to follow a cyclical pattern with long stretches of slow difficult markets and at times relatively hot markets. The overall B.C. provincial economy has been in the economic doldrums the last few years although the outlook in the long term is now positive. Often, houses sit on the market for many months (sometimes up to 24 months), with very few buyers making offers. If you owned a home that was empty in which you were making payments on, you wold be very anxious to have it sold as quickly as possible. Many homeowners are in this position and would rather sell their house over time than lose thousands of dollars while its stays vacant, or sell at a price far lower than its current value.

Creative Home Buyers Ltd. buys home from Sellers in this position. We also buy homes that are about to go into foreclosure or are in distress for a number of reasons. We are then able to offer them at a fair price to buyers like yourself who cannot qualify for a mortgage today, but would be able to qualify at a later date such as 3 years for example.

This just makes sense to us monkeys…  Thanks Andrew Rezmer for the CLARITY