Anyone tried 'Rent to Buy'?

We are buying an off-plan property, which will be completed by the end of 2009.

We have used our life savings to make the stage payments and were relying on the equity in our UK house to pay the balance on our Spanish property.

In view of the grave problems UK house sellers face, we have to be realistic and assume that it's unlikely that our UK house will sell.

This means NO funding for the Spanish property. Being semi-retired i.e. over 60 and on a part-time very small wage, our income is too small for a mortgage, even if we could get one.

This means we have to think of something else, may be to negotiate a 'Rent to Buy' with our builders. i.e. rent your new build for a few years until the crunch improves and buy when you can sell your UK property in a few years time.

Something along the lines of this

http://www.eyeonspain.com/Secure/articles/article.aspx?article=/recession-option-buy.aspx

Has anybody tried to do this with their purchase?

Any advice or comments as to how we approach the builder with this proposal appreciated.

I can't help thinking that this could be a way forward for so many off-planners facing a similar dilema to us.

Problem is you need to be sure that it is rented all the time and I don't think that is easy these days. If you are ready to move when your property is ready you could let your UK property and live in the Spanish one.

We are doing something like this but found a mortgage hard to find and "buy to let" mortgages only seem to be available to existing landlords.We have one now, just in time,thanks to a broker who handles my son's business finances.5 other brokers had failed !

If you need his contact number drop me a PM.

Good luck.

Acapulco, I think Rymski means he wants to change his purchase to an rental to buy one, not rent his out.

Rymski, many developers are open to ideas, speak to them and see what can be sorteed out as they would rather have the proeprty sold and the community fees paid than having to try and resell. Also you could try to renegotiate the price on the basis valuations have dropped severely.

Good luck

I agree you need to negotiate with developer with your rights at hand.

This might help your mind-frame on your current situation:

http://www.eyeonspain.com/blogs/costaluz/482/credit-crunch-times-can-play-in-favour-of-consumers-why-not.aspx

Hi all,

We have a builder who we have dealt with for 18 months now, he had 100 villas he could not sell and was stuck with them. The reason he was stuck with them was a dispute on the position of 4 of the Villas, locally they were OK, but in Valencia they are in the National park.

After meeting with him, we put to him the rent to buy option, which he took up and now most of them are rented out, he has a deposit in joint names, this fixes the price and when the dispute was resolved, (now it is, as of 28th October 2008) then they would go ahead and buy and get 50% of the rent back against the price. This builder was so pleased with the outcome, he has now offered us 10 to sell at a reduced price of in some cases 50% off the listed selling price of 395000 euro.

So as you can see, builders are willing to listen in these hard times, most of the small guy's are human and will do anything to keep their businesses alive, so just talk to them. If it is one of the big boys, then I would not be that hopeful, but you can try.

Good luck

Dave

I started to hear rent to buy was becoming popular last summer. Keymare in Vera Playa were offering 100% of the rent discounted off the price. I think that in this climate any builder should be open to offers. Use the forums to get other purchasers from your development to join with you as numbers count as well. Good luck.