Owner financing is a very common real estate purchase structure which has really come into the forefront of buying and selling in a buyers market. So I decided I would put together a quick overview of what owner financing is, since most buyers, sellers and even real estate professionals are usually unfamiliar with the term and the types of contracts involved. Remember structuring owners financing deals works for all types of real estate transactions big and small; home or commercial buildings.

Owner Financing Overview:

Owner financing is when all or part of the agreed upon purchase amount is held by the seller. I always tell people to look at it in the terms of a bank, the seller is holding the financing in the same way a bank would. The seller receives the monthly payments based on an agreed upon rate and term with a future balloon date for full pay off. This type of real estate transactions is very common in a buyer’s market like we are seeing now, and even more common now that lenders have tighten their underwriting guidelines and or have completely stopped lending. These sets of circumstances have created a smaller buyers pool, however the amount of property owners that still want and need to sell is still there. Seller financing can be a great way to bridge the gap between buyers and sellers.

Owner Financing Term Length:

The length of an owner financed property can differ between the time lines of both the buyer and seller. Almost all owners financed monthly payments, no matter if they are commercial purchasers or home purchases are amortized over 30 years. A typical contract balloon term is a minimum of two – three years, since 24 months is a key number for most lenders to see that you have been making on time payments on this property before lending on the buyers purchase/refinance of the owner financed contract. In addition it allows the buyer to clean up any credit or financial issues that are dragging them down from buying, if that is the buyer’s personal situations. But what is even more important in this market is that allowing the financial lending markets to stabilize and open back up. This has been the major factor for owner financing.

We have been structuring the length of our owner financing contracts out a minimum of three years with three, one year extension options. This brings the full possible balloon payment out to 6 years, if needed. This is simply because we need to make sure we give enough time for those financial lending markets enough time to rebound and starting lending again. In addition we have had owners request longer terms because of the huge tax benefits that a longer term brings, we will get talk about that subject on another article.

Down Payment or No Down Payment:

The subject on providing a down payment on the owner financing contract is always a sticky one. From the sellers stand point they usually want as much down payment as possible, why? Because, if the buyer has some “skin in the game” they are less likely to walk away from the property and contract. From the buyers stand point they always want to come in with as little a down payment as possible, thus limiting their risk.

Personally from my experience and many others I feel that most sellers should accept a smaller down payment if one at all. I know… I know what you are thinking… WTF, why would I take the risk? My point of view comes from the simple fact that if a buyer has circumstances come up that they can no longer make payments on the property, they are still going to walk away if needed, regardless of having a down payment or not. Yes…yes… I know having a down payment would at least be some kind of compensation to the seller. However from my stand point I would rather receive a few thousand dollars from the buyer and allow him/her to keep any additional monies for reserves and repairs on the property, because they do and will come up. You see from my experience if someone runs into a tough financial spot, I would rather them have reserves that can float the payment until they get back on their feet vs. being tapped out of funds day one after buying a property.

This goes for both residential and commercial real estate. Maybe even more so for commercial real estate since there is a high volume of repairs, maintenance and normal unit turns which having a reserve account is a must have to be successful. And the best thing is that you can always have compensating factors for low to no down payments such as higher interest rate and or higher balloon payoff.

Interest Rate:

This is one of the reasons I love owner financing. It allows sellers to charge a higher interest rates thus possibly receiving monthly cash flow from the property. If there is a mortgage on the property it is very normal depending on the type of real estate to charge an interest rate to the buyer that is higher then what is currently being charged by the bank. We have seen rates all over the board including interest only payments, staggered payments and payments that are equal to the current underlying mortgage payment from the bank. The key is to at least cover the current mortgage payment on the property if there is one.

Expenses:

Make sure that it is written into the contract specifically stating who covers what expenses and repairs. Normally since the buyer is purchasing the building that they cover all expenses related to the property just like an owner would. I have however, seen contracts where the seller has to cover major repairs and OK any remodeling of the property. This is because the seller still has ownership interest of the property and cannot let it go into disrepair or remodeled to a point that does not do the property any good. I always prefer to have the buyer pay everything and just notify me when upgrades or remodeling is going to be done.