Buyer's Advantage: Owner Financing Terms That Put the Buyer In Control

The REtipster Podcast | Real Estate Investing

When you buy real estate with seller financing, you can structure the terms of the deal so that YOU, as the buyer/borrower, have a deal that is highly advantageous for you, with as many options as possible.

Granted, you'll be somewhat limited by the seller and the options they're willing to give you. However, when you get a loan from a bank or credit union, you will not have this flexibility. There's not even a point in trying to negotiate the terms of your loan with them because that's just not how they work.

When you borrow money from a bank or credit union, they will always use their boilerplate templates, which are written to give them the maximum amount of control and options.

With seller financing, there is much more opportunity to write the loan documents in a way that is fair to the seller but also works to your advantage by giving you plenty of upsides and advantages.

Of course, your ability to negotiate terms will depend on the seller's flexibility, what they need, how sophisticated they are, and how much they're willing to entertain what you want. But in many cases, if you're the one proposing seller financing in the first place, and if you already have your own documents and deal structure well-planned and ready to go, many sellers won't put up obstacles in the same ways a bank will.

Understanding Your Options

I want to share several different terms you can infuse into your loan documents, to give yourself the kinds of options and control you will never have with a bank loan.

I don't mean to imply that you should always push for all of these things. In fact, it would be highly unlikely that you could get a seller to agree to all of these conditions.

My point sis NOT that you should pursue all these things. My goal is to help you see the different cards you can play so you can get creative and pull the right ones out of your back pocket when needed.

This way, you can choose the most appropriate one(s), depending on the seller's willingness to accept. When you understand the seller's wants and needs, you can fine-tune the terms to craft a deal that will work well for you.
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