A Viable Option and Some Promotional News...

Happy Wednesday to Everyone,

Hope you're all having a great week.

I just returned back here after a meeting with a panel of Realtors (Agents and Brokers), along with a mix of people who are selling their homes. Surprise/Surprise; a majority of the homeowners have been just sitting on their properties, and some have engaged the services of these Realtors to help them along.

We were there, at the invitation of some good-hearted Realtors, in order to present the concept of Rent to Own, and to let them know it is a viable option. Realtors know that if they place their clients homes on our website, and there is movement, traffic, and offers on the property, they look like magicians, especially nowadays. Rent to Own is moving away from the title of a "creative real estate deal", and is becoming more of a mainstream option.

OK, website news: At your request, we have added the "Site Map" option back to the bottom of every page on our website. We apologize that is was removed, but it was only for a few days for some testing, and we thank those of you who notified us about this. Further, we are toying with the idea of mentioning some of the latest Rent to Own Home listings and Rent to Own Buyer listings in our Blog posts. Is that something that would interest you? Please let us know.

PROMOTIONAL NEWS:
Please remember that for any 3-Month (or longer) "Home Available" Ad (if you're Selling a Rent to Own Home) or "Home Wanted" Ad (if you're buying a Rent to Own Home), you will receive a free copy of "Secrets of Rent to Own", which is a great guidebook for anyone buying or selling a Rent to Own Home (More info on this book here: Click Here).

In order to take advantage of this promo:
If you are Selling a Rent to Own Home, Click Here, and,
If you are Buying a Rent to Own Home, Click Here.
After checking-out, the book will be available for download upon log in.


Have a great day, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !!!

Foreclosure Prevention, Improved Housing Markets, Social Media Blog Updates...

Good Morning to All,

Glad to have you back here with us today ! I don't know how the weather has been where you are, but the humidity has been sky-high here on the East Coast, and it's not even summer (officially) yet, and if this is any indication of how this summer will be, then I'm ready for the Fall !

Today, I wanted to share two interesting pieces that crossed my desk; Once is concerning foreclosures, and the other one is a little more positive, and is regarding some housing markets that are showing improvement.

Let's first begin with the sour apple of the two: "Avoid foreclosure-prevention scams: 3 tips" (Source located at this link). Without regurgitating the entire article, the three tips for whom to avoid are summarized as follows; Those who "Ask for a fee in advance, Tell you they can guarantee foreclosure will stop, and Urge you to stop paying your mortgage and pay them instead".

These are great pieces of advice, but there are a few more that we would like to add, namely, when someone tells you that they are a member of XYZ Corporation, don't just take their word for it...do your due diligence. Investigate the company. Ask for a corporate phone number. Make sure they are for real, since it is your home that is on the line.

One other thing that you want to do is to have them lay out a plan in writing and on their corporate letterhead (for a corporation that you have already done your homework on from our previous tip listed above). Have them put everything in writing and get them to notarize it. If they falter or give you a difficult time with any requests that you may have, a red flag should go up. There are many hunters out there looking for "prey", or people who are in a very bad economic situation and are highly susceptible to any offers, good or bad. Keep your eyes and ears open, and make sure that you don't lose your home and any additional money you have to a scammer.

As for the Housing Markets that are showing improvement (Source located at this link), the top 5 are: Denver, Boston, St.Louis, Pittsburgh, and San Jose, California. Some of the factors that were used in building this list were home prices and bids placed on homes. The complete list of 20 of the improving housing markets is located at this link. Do you live in one of these cities? Have you sold a home in one of these areas, or have you been trying to sell a home or to rent to own a home? Please weigh in on this and let us know what your thoughts are.

We are happy to say that we are now saturating over 50 Social Media Sites with our Blog posts, so if you prefer to read our posts on your favorite site, we are already on most of the major sites. If there is a site that you would like us to update, check with us and if we are not updating it already, we will be glad to add it.

Stick with us. This is going to be an exciting week !
Have a great week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !!

May Residential Construction Numbers - Friend or Foe?

Hi Everyone,

Another Friday is upon us, and we are thankful for another very busy week. As a rule, I try to look back at each week to see what I am thankful for. Let me tell you - some weeks it is tough to find anything, aside from being thankful for my family! However, this past week, we not only received some fantastic media coverage (http://www.familygoesstrong.com/making-rent-own-real-estate-deals-work), but we also had a few other interviews for popular financial and real estate websites that are on the pipeline to be published as well. Additionally, we received some good karma (priceless), by hearing some very kind comments from people who have used our website. Karma, that's what it's really all about !

OK, now on to the Real Estate market, our ailing friend ! The New Residential construction numbers will be released this week (on June 16th), and most importantly, these numbers will reflect the post-tax credit market, since they cover May 2010 (the tax credit ended on April 30th 2010). I, personally, am very curious to see these numbers, and I know a lot of real estate investors, economists, and builders, who are also interested in this. This could have a significant impact on the market. Could the numbers have dropped? Sure they could have...the major incentive expired...but the market has most probably discounted this information into the mix already. If the numbers pop upwards, that could have a dramatic effect on the market, and potentially, the Rent to Own Market, as well. For more information on these reports, please check here: http://www.census.gov/const/www/newresconstindex.html


We have a few infrastructure and marketing projects drawing closer to completion, and when they are finished, we will let you know. They involve ease of accessibility, traffic incentives, and an overall boost to site traffic to increase views to your Ads on our website.


Do you enjoy reading our Blog?

If so, we would love to hear from you in the comments section below. If you don't have time to read it and you would rather listen to it, we do 1-2 Podcasts per week, and you can download them in MP3 format in our Itunes Store, at: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=373351426


Have a Great Weekend, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !!

Rent vs. Buy, Rent to Own, and Eight-Years Strong...

Good Morning Everyone,

It's Wednesday, and we are half-way there !

Quite often, when a prospective buyer or a seller is evaluating whether they should Rent, Buy, or Rent to Own, they need to gather all of the applicable numbers and "crunch" them. If they start out by looking into Renting, they need to tally up the monthly payments, fees, insurance, and any applicable rate increases.

Likewise, for the possibility of buying a home, they have to take into account pricing, down payment, loan amount, interest rate, term, insurance, taxes, maintenance, and potential appreciation. On top of all of this, they need to figure it out over multiple different lengths of time, tax brackets, tax implications, as well as inflation rates. It can be daunting. There is quite a handy little tool over at Trulia, called the "Rent vs. Buy" Calculator, and this free automated program spits out some pretty helpful results. Head on over there and take a look at it today !

Now, based on the results that you come up with, you might lean towards renting a home (or renting out your home), buying a home (or selling your home), or you might chose the hybrid, which is Rent to Own. Whatever you decide, this tool will save you time and help you make your decision.

Since we are on the topic of Rent to Own, and receiving help in the decision-making process, be sure to check out this great article, titled, "Making Rent-to-Own Real Estate Deals Work", by Susan Kuchinskas at FamilyGoesStrong.com. This was a multi-part series of articles on Rent to Own & Lease Options, and this last article discusses some good tips and information.

We were honored to be included in this article as a long-standing resource for Rent to Own Home Listings (They referred to us as , "an eight-year-old online marketplace for rent-to-own deals"). This is an accolade that we are very proud of. We have been around for a long time, and we plan on being around as long as people need a roof over their heads !

Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Making Rent-to-Own Real Estate Deals Work...

Hi All,

This is an addendum to our earlier Blog Post, since we have just been provided with some fantastic media coverage in an article titled, "Making Rent-to-Own Real Estate Deals Work".

The excerpt that we are included in reads as follows:

"If you want to take a look at some of the deals on offer, go to Homerun Homes (www.Lease2Buy.com), an eight-year-old online marketplace for rent-to-own deals. Browsing its listings turns up some great offers, as well as some wildly unrealistic ones in which prospective buyers want below-market rents with no money down."


To read the full article, please visit the source at: http://www.familygoesstrong.com/making-rent-own-real-estate-deals-work and also, our Press page at http://www.lease2buy.com/press.php


Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Baby Boomers and Rent to Own...

Hi Everyone,

We hope you had a great summer-like pre-summer weekend, and welcome back !

There is an important topic that we wanted to touch on, and that is the topic of Baby Boomers, and whether they should Buy, Rent, or Rent to Own. The last two options might strike you as odd - Rent and Rent to Own - but we will explain here.

As the first group of Baby Boomers approaches 65 years of age, the youngest of the Baby Boomers is in their mid-upper 40's. Since we are trained to think about who would normally rent or rent to own a home, we think of people just starting out in life, and looking to either rent for a while before finding a home to buy, or renting to own a property and converting it to a purchase within a specified period of time. However, this can be faulty thinking for a number of reasons, and to make a long story short, the Economy has really blurred these lines. There are plenty of folks out there who were close to retirement, and then they have lost it all, only to start all over again. In these such cases, a Rent to Own would be ideal for them, since they can still pursue the home-ownership option that they lost due to unfortunate occurrences often beyond their control.

I tried not to rant much on this, but we have seen so many people who have been hurt so badly by this economy, that it is absolutely heartbreaking. When you hear a 60 year old couple crying over how they lost their life savings and their home, and they have come to our website looking for a Rent to Own home, it is just painful. It is something that you literally want to cry over. It's days like that where we know that our site is there for people who are in need of finding or selling a Rent to Own Home, and we know that people are finding what they need so they can regain their dignity, pick up the pieces, and carry on with their lives again.


On a much lighter note, we are proud to announce that we have just surpassed 1100 Friends on our Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/homerunhomes), 217 Fans on our new Facebook Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/lease2buy), and are we are now well over 900 Followers on our Twitter Page (http://twitter.com/homerunhomes). We would love to have you as Friends, Fans, and Followers on all of our pages, so be sure to check them out. Please note that our Blog Posts update those sites automatically soon after they are posted.


Have a great week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !!

Mortgage Horror Story...

Hi Everyone,

Friday is upon us, and it's another sizzling one, depending on where you are geographically!

Today, I'd like to share a mortgage horror story with you. When I purchased an investment home with some partners a couple of years back, we were assured an interest rate on an interest-only/balloon mortgage. However, once we got to the closing table, the rate showed up in the documents as higher by 1/4 point. Needless to say, we were all quite furious, and the fact that the mortgage broker was not at the closing didn't help the situation(he was on vacation), so we called him on his mobile phone to voice our disapproval over this rate discrepancy. There was quite an exchange of words, however, it was kept on a professional level and just short of using expletives.

Ultimately, it was a mistake on his part, and he made good on the difference with a check to us for the difference calculated out over an agreed upon period of the loan. In order to avoid delaying the closing to have new papers drawn up, we moved forward, and accepted the above-mentioned check from his closing associate to cover a majority of our "losses". The moral of the story: Make sure everything is in writing, whether it be an E-mail from the mortgage company, or physical documents, you just cannot argue with hard copy. In this case, we had done previous closings with this broker, so we know it was an error and not malicious. Either way, "in writing" is the key. May this little story and this tip save you tons of aggravation !

Economic News related to the Real Estate Housing market is quiet next week, but as we all know, any and all economic news that is released will affect the housing market directly or indirectly. Always keep your eyes and ears open!

We have additional items/upgrades and more new features rolling out next week, so be sure to check in on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and any other days in between for breaking news and updates. What would even be easier for you? You can subscribe to this Blog feed or you can subscribe for Blog updates via E-mail. These options are both located on top of the column on the right-hand side of this page where it says, "Subscribe To Posts" and "Subscribe by E-mail". Also remember to check out our Podcasts for Free Download in our ITunes Store at http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=373351426


We hope you stay cool, and have a great weekend!
Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Caribbean Islands, Architects, Builders, Construction, Pending Homes Sales Up...

Hi Everyone,

Hope your week is going great so far. We have a few new and exciting features that we wanted to inform you of today.

For starters, we have been receiving a lot of comments and requests for a new section for Jamaica, the Bahamas, Trinidad, etc. The amount of requests alone would not warrant a section for each of these countries, however, we have created a broader category for the Caribbean Islands.

The new section for the Caribbean Island Homes Wanted is located at: http://www.lease2buy.com/homes_wanted_listing.php?state=Caribbean+Islands

The new section for the Caribbean Island Homes Available is located at: http://www.lease2buy.com/homes_available_listing.php?state=Caribbean+Islands

Please note that these are freshly created sections, and therefore, they are not populated yet, so you may now begin posting your Rent to Own Homes as well as your requests for Rent to Own Homes.

The next features that we have added are in the Home Services section, and the new services that we have added are "Architects" (See it Here)and "Builders & Construction" (See it Here), which covers the full process from the design of a home, all the way on up through building the home. Additionally, we have added an "Announcements" Section (See it Here), which is ideal for announcing Real Estate Investor Meetings ! If you need to add your services to any of these sections, you can do so via this link: http://www.lease2buy.com/homeservicesinfo.php


The final new feature we have included is a "Share This Property" button, which is included on the page of every "Homes Available" Ad. This button will let you share the link to your home with all of the popular Social Bookmarking Websites (for example, Digg, Delicious, etc.). The goal: Putting your property in front of as many eyeballs as you can !

For some other news, Pending Home Sales hit a 6-month high in April. This is good news as we are now headed into the summer months.


Being the bearer of all of this good news is fantastic! I wish I could bring news like this every day...maybe I can?


Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Tips for Saving Money On Your Electric Bill...

Hi Everyone,

We just wanted to wish everyone a happy and peaceful Memorial Day. We hope that you are spending some quality time relaxing and enjoying your day. It is certainly a hot one here in New York, and the Air Conditioners are running at full blast. This leads me to a tip that we wanted to share with you that might save you a few dollar per month.

Basically, rates are constantly on the increase from the electric company, and they give you every reason under the sun (no pun intended) for these increases. However, there are two options that you can look into that might save you some money, so let's address them both here:

Your first option would be to call your electric company/utility (on Long Island, ours is LIPA), and ask them what it would cost per month to be put on a "budget billing plan". What they will do is to calculate an average monthly payment, and with your permission, will change you to that fixed monthly payment. The benefits of this are immediately obvious if you take this plan when the summer begins. The reasoning is that if, for example, you spend $300 per month during the summer (air conditioner, pool filter, etc), and you pay $100 per month during the winter, your summer payments will drop dramatically. The drawback is that when the winter comes, your payments will be slightly higher (there are less months of running the Air Conditioner vs. not running it). Also, it makes it easier for your own personal budgeting, in that you know what the payments will be each month, and there will be no "surprises". We have been doing this, and when the 12-month billing cycle was over, we were actually faced with a surplus, which was credited back to us. That is actually a great surprise!

Your second option, which you can do concurrently with the first option, is to speak with your neighbors and get a sense of what they are paying. If you see a large disparity between what they are paying for a similar type of home and similar type of appliances (important!) and what you are paying, contact the electric company and request an audit. They will do some back-end review, and will probably send someone out to your home to review your infrastructure, as well as send you a link to their website to run a manual energy audit.

These are all good ideas for you to look into and we hope that they save you some money.

Do you have any other tips that we did not touch on here? We would love to hear. Please send us your comments to this post.

We will be posting more this week, as there are a lot of very exciting things going on here that will have a significant impact on your search for a Rent to Own Home, or to help you Rent to Own your home.

Have a Great Holiday and Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Top 6 Housing Features that Define Comfort

Hi Everyone,

Hope you have had a great week, and the Memorial Day Weekend is upon us. Literally...it's hours away !

We recently took a poll amongst people advertising their Rent to Own homes on our website, and we asked them a very specific question: "What do you consider the most attractive features of your home and neighborhood?". We posed the same question to people looking for a Rent to Own Home on our website, but we changed it slightly to say, "What would you consider the most attractive features of a potential new home and new neighborhood?" The results were tallied, and we have summarized the top 6 of them, since they were the most popular by a landslide. Here is what we found out:

6 Housing Features that Define "Comfort":
1. Ability to make the rental or house payments
2. Proximity to Employment
3. Proximity to Family
4. How easy it is to get around locally - bus routes, trains, etc
5. Amount of traffic in (1-mile) perimeter around the home.
6. Proximity to Houses of Worship

If you are all thinking the same thing I am, it is amazing that the majority is primarily concerned with being able to make the payments. I wonder if we had done the same poll 3 years ago, if the results would be different? We can only wonder. Incidentally, take note of #3 ("Proximity to Family") - my Mother-in-Law lives overseas - so I am living outside that particular rule (wonderful lady - but space is good, universally).


OK, this week, we have been syndicating our Blog across may more Social Media sites, and, we are very proud to announce:
Our Podcasts are now available on ITunes for Free Download. The exact link to our ITunes Store is:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=373351426.

We will try to make at least 1 or more Podcasts per week, coupled with our 3 +/- Blog Posts per week.


A few reminders: We offer very generous referral fees (contact us here for more information). Also, the Pending Home Sales index will be released next Wednesday, June 2nd, and it will cover the month of April. Keep your eyes peeled for that one.


May you have a fantastic Holiday Weekend.
And as always, Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Ambivalent Housing Market, Secrets of Rent to Own, etc...

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are having a great week. We are already half-way through, and chugging along towards the long Holiday weekend !

Today, I wanted to return to the ambivalent topic of the housing market, and I wanted to cite two very interesting pieces. The first article is about the rise in New Home Sales in April. This is very interesting, but as we know, the tax credit expired on April 30th, and to see if the mad rush to buy new homes continued after that date, I want to see the numbers for May ! Am I never satisfied? Well, that brings us to the second article, which says, "After increasing last summer, U.S. home prices are drifting lower again". "Clashing, Contradictory, Uncertain, Undecided"? These are all synonyms from Thesaurus.com that describe this ambivalent condition. One would have to argue that as the old cliche dictates, "only time will tell".

On the Website side of things, we have been working hard to get our site to render/appear well on your IPhone, Droid, etc. We will be entering the mobile testing phase in the next few weeks and will post our results for some of the most common mobile devices after that time.

Be sure to check out our "Secrets of Rent to Own" Guide Here. This is a handy guide for anyone that is Looking to Buy a Rent to Own a Home or is Selling a Rent to Own Home. It's a great first step in the direction of a Rent to Own agreement, if that is indeed what is of interest to you.


What else would you like to hear us Blog About? We have been taking your opinions and surveys and responding to them. Keep it coming, as we truly value your input and suggestions. Comment below or E-mail us Here.


Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !!

Blogging from the heart...

Hi Everyone,

We hope you had a great weekend, whether you were looking for a home or selling a home, or whether you just chose to take it easy and unwind. Summer is definitely in the air, and the humidity is creeping up.

This entry today brings us one step close to the summer, a time for vacations and fun, but also a time where people who are looking for and selling a home begin to feel some desperation. Perhaps they have children that they would like to have situated in a new school district before the school year begins. Perhaps you have children who just graduated or are moving to college, and you want to down-size. The summer stirs up all of these different situations, and it is on it's way. We hope that the new data coming out this week supports a stronger housing market, so a lot of people are taking a "wait and see" attitude.

Of course, there are those in desperation that are only looking straight ahead towards their immediate and urgently pressing goal of buying or selling. Those that are potentially in serious trouble and face imminent problems. To those people, we say to you, albeit hopefully of some comfort to you, that, "in darkness shineth light". This is from a Latin phrase roughly translated into English, but if you read it over, it will make you realize that little rays and sparks of hope will appear. It's all about perspective. If your family and children are healthy, monetary issues are worries over lack of paper - literally. These are problems that cannot kill you, if you conquer the stress that you impose on yourself during those times. Often, it's literally, "You against You". Realize this, stay strong, and you will make it through.

You do have options, and you do have choices. We founded our company on the principles of a desperate need back in 2002, when the market was in a good position. Regardless of the market, needs and desperation are always present, just to varying degrees. Keep your head up and be strong.

Blogging from the heart !
Have a great week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Confusing Housing Market, Residential Sales, Prices, Mobile Devices...

Hi Everyone,

We have all made it through another exciting week, with traffic to our website up another 10% from last week, and Ad-responses have been gaining further momentum. This is great news for anyone who has an Ad on our website.

Well, if you've kept an eye on the news this week, you know that there have been several mixed signals from the market and the housing sector. We have heard that mortgage delinquencies were still happening at a rapid clip through the end of March, loan demands/requests from people looking to buy homes are at a 13-Year Low, and for the people who did seek Obama's Loan Modification HAMP program, an astonishing amount of them had their trial mortgages canceled...yes, you heard me right...canceled. True, there is a lot of uncertainty now, due to the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit (which expired on 4/30). This past week, an article on CNN was aptly named, "Housing market diagnosis: Bipolar".

OK, so doom and gloom. Is there a bright side? Of course there is. There are still options for homeowners who cannot find a loan the conventional way. The possibility always exists for you to negotiate a Rent to Own with a homeowner. Ask them. Inform them of how it works, and get your attorneys involved. Homeowners, please take note as well. If you're trying to sell your home, you might be going through potential buyers faster than a termite goes through wood. One after the other drops off since they cannot get a bank loan. Be creative and look into Rent to Own.

A few changes to the site this week, outside of what we mentioned earlier in the week. We have spruced up our "Top Spot" Featured Ad pages with some images of what an actual Top Spot promoted Ad will look like.

You can check out the page for upgrading a "Home Wanted" Ad here: http://www.lease2buy.com/top_homeswanted.php

You can check out the page for upgrading a "Home Available" Ad here: https://www.lease2buy.com/top_homesavailable.php

A look ahead to the economic news for next week shows us some very important numbers coming out: Existing-Home Sales. S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, FHFA Quarterly House Price Index, and New Residential Sales. These numbers should set the tone for the summer months, and they are worth watching.

Looking ahead for our website, we will be working on "mobile-enabling" our site for the most popular mobile devices now, like the IPhone, Android, etc, and we'll keep you posted on how this is going. We have seen a significant increase in traffic to our site from Mobile Devices, and we want to capitalize on every potential buyer and seller...any one of them can be "the one" who can Rent to Own your home !!


We value your feedback; Please tell us what creative options you have been considering to buy or sell a home? Let us know



Have a Great Weekend, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Commercial Real Estate Market, Multiple Properties, Charleston visit...

Hi Everyone,

Hope your week is going well. We are glad to be with you here and to make a few announcements and give you some information on the markets around us.

We just returned back from Charleston (South Carolina) for a quick 2-day conference, and we had a chance to visit the downtown waterfront area. Since this was my first time down there, I was very impressed by the way the Civil War era homes are mixed in amongst the modern architecture. Charleston is a very quaint little city, and we actually learned about the "Widow's Porch", that is standard on all homes along the waterfront, and which is an homage to the bygone era, where women would wait on the top part of their homes for their husbands to return home from sea. Of course, some never made it back, thus the name of the porch. How times have changed, as nowadays, it could also be referred to as a "Widower's Porch", had it been the wife out at sea and the husband was at home waiting for her. Nevertheless, it is a very nice city to visit, with good cuisine, fantastic architecture, and a market that is evidently strengthening.

Since we are on the topic of markets, there was a very interesting article on Inc.com, titled, "Norm Brodsky on Why Real Estate Still Rules". A construction service owner was curious as to whether he should buy or rent office space, and Norm responded along with the comment that, "I expect that the commercial real estate market will bottom out in 18 months to 24 months". Yes, we all had a feeling about this, and his respected opinion only bolsters this feeling. This is truly a valid concern. We have seen a very large part of the Commercial Real Estate market make inquiries to us regarding the potential to do a hybrid of renting and purchasing stores, buildings, lands, or lots...thus, Rent to Own. In response to these requests, we have implemented the Commercial Real Estate section, where Commercial Properties can be listed, or Commercial Properties can be viewed. We are hoping that this gives some owners and potential buyers of Commercial Real Estate another option, and hopefully, this will help them in their endeavors.

We have made a few changes on the site this week, primarily linking to this Blog from the footer on all pages of our website. Additionally, when a quote is requested for Selling Multiple Properties, we have made the E-mail that comes to the requester into a much more detailed quote format. Once again, all of these changes are being made to simplify the experience for people who are buying or selling a Rent to Own Home or other property.

We have some more improvements in the pipeline, and we will keep you updated as the week continues. Please feel free to comment here and let us know what improvements you would like to see !


NOTE: The Podcast for this Post is available at: http://www.box.net/shared/ngq38qsv5u


Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !

Flipping, Homes Available, Mortgages, Tip of the Day...

Hi Everyone,

Hope everyone had a great weekend. It was a really warm weekend here in New York, and of course, that means, "Daddy, I want ice cream", and of course, my personal favorite, the resulting sugar rush !

A few business partners/investors and I went looking at some local properties this past weekend to get a better sense of the underlying market conditions, and to potentially make some offers on some of them in order to flip/rehab, and then Rent to Own them afterwards. The funny thing is that we have actually made contact with a customer who placed an Ad on our site and we are going to see their property this week. When they heard that it was members of HomeRun Homes who are actually coming to see their home, they had a good laugh, due to the irony. We had wanted to see their home this past weekend, however, they were showing the property to people who contacted them via their Ad on our site (their "Home Available" Ad).

We have been receiving a lot of E-mails from people asking us about certain properties or homes that they desire to have, so we wanted to clarify here, that you can always check out homes and contact the owners (for free !) via the "Homes Available" link on the side of our website (www.lease2buy.com). If you do not see the property you are looking for, you can let "the world" know what you need by clicking the "Find a Rent to Own" Home link on any page of our website, and following the prompts to create your own, "Home Wanted" Ad.

Tip of the Day: When we originally purchased our primary residence, our mortgage broker quoted us a specific rate. When we got to closing, there was a 1/8 point discrepancy above the quoted rate. After some yelling and screaming during the closing (of course), the broker agreed to compensate us by cutting a check to hedge the "loss" for us. All worked out well, and this kind of thing does happen from time to time, and it may not be malicious on their part - it could just be an oversight. But the tip of the day is 2 words: "In Writing". Make sure you get every single quote, whether it's a mortgage interest rate, a home price...anything...in writing, on the letterhead of the broker, seller, etc, along with the date and their signature.


We will be doing some cool structural work on our site this week, and we'll let you know.

As always, remember to "Follow" our Blog (see the left-side of the page), so you can be notified when a new post is made, and as always, we welcome your valuable comments and insights!

Have a great week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !