So I put in an offer to a seller who seemed to be pretty motivated (middle age couple, new baby, had moved out of the area, ready to be done with the house). They offered the house for 139,000 and had consistantly received $1100 a month rent for the last 5 years or so. I offered 900 a month rent with a 5 year lease with $50 of that going to pay down the sale price of $124,000. The 124,000 was the average of zillow.com, eppraisal.com, and cyberhomes.com. The seller thought that $124,000 was too low and didn’t feel comfortable locking in 124,000 for 5 years. She also thought that with a lease option (she did some research after I made the offer) that I should put down a down payment (and she may have a good point since a lot of lease options do that that).
Did I structure the deal wrong? Should I not have added in the $50 per month to pay down the sale price? Are there any other pieces of advice that anyone here would have? Thanks a lot.