A guide to investing in real estate when lending is tight – without needing a mortgage, good credit, or a down payment.<br><br>Audience: The investor looking to invest in real estate using lease options.<br><br>Lease Options are becoming quite the buzz word lately. Years ago it was harder for me to get Realtors to even consider a Lease Option for their clients. Today, markets all across the country have changed. Lease Options are currently a viable industry trend and needed for many sellers to sell their homes.<br><br>What is a Lease Option?<br>A Lease Option is a way to purchase real estate, usually with very little or no money down, sometimes even with money back in the investor's pocket. Sound too good to be true? Well, it isn't. Can an investor end up with money in their pocket and not have to put 10-20% down to purchase real estate? Yes. This technique is used commonly today by the most successful real estate investors.<br><br>The lease option strategy gives an investor the right to lease a home and also the right to purchase the home during or before the end of the lease period. An option is a contract that gives an optionee the right to exercise a privilege – and in the case of real estate investing, it gives the optionee (investor) the right to purchase property during a contracted period of time. It is a technique that involves gaining 'control' of a property, without the total burdens of ownership.<br><br>ALL money made in real estate is made by controlling property. Owning property is the most obvious way to control it, but control is possible without ownership – and control is what makes the money. It was a dying John D. Rockefeller who told all of us his secret to achieving great wealth, "Control everything, own nothing." All of the most successful real estate developers today utilize options, in one form or another.<br><br>A sandwich lease option involves the investor selling the home to a tenant buyer through "sandwiching" themselves in the middle of the deal.<br><br>When doing any lease option deal, it is one of my mottos that everyone must win or don't do the deal. There are 3 people involved in a Sandwich Lease Option: the seller, you (the investor) and the tenant/buyer. It must be a win/win/win, otherwise walk away.<br><br>Sandwich lease options are extremely profitable for real estate investors.
