Investors Guide - Specialist Lease Options

Rent-to-rent – whereby you rent a property and sublet it to tenants that you find and manage – is a great strategy for investors with limited startup money, because it gives you the chance to earn a steady income from property that you don’t own. But what it doesn’t give you is any form of capital growth. You can’t sell a property that you don’t own, nor will you benefit from any appreciation in the property’s value as a result of your hard work. Could lease options be the solution to this capital growth problem? In my view, absolutely. A lease option (also known as rent-to-buy) works in much the same way as rent-to-rent, in that you rent a property and then sublet and manage it to earn an income. But in addition to this, you negotiate the option to buy the property in future, and this option is written into your contract with the property owner. In this way, the two strategies combined give you steady income now, plus the potential for capital growth in the future. Talk about win-win.