Why is Rent to Buy so scarce?

mandelbrot

Registered User
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Hi all,

As someone who is hoping to become a FTB in the next couple of years, I'm intrigued as to why there is not much more activity on a rent to buy basis?

I remember there was a flurry of talk about it 2/3 years ago, but then it never really seemed to take off, and I'm wondering why not? Surely from the vendors point of view, particularly a developer, the cash flow is desperately needed, rather than have a house sitting there depreciating in value and not generating any money.

And from a buyer's perspective, in a market where obtaining credit is so difficult, the possibility of building up a deposit out of rents, and agreeing the purchase price, has to have an advantage.

From my point of view as a prospective buyer, if I see a house in a good location that I know I'll want for the medium- to long-term, then it doesn't make a huge amount of difference to me if the market falls by another 10%-20% over the next couple of years, because this will be offset by
1. The portion of the rent being rolled up into my deposit
2. The value to me of actually having possession of the house during the period, and
3. My retaining the ability to walk away at the end of the rental period if I choose to, if I end up not liking the house / area, or there is better value elsewhere.

So I'm just wondering about others' take on the idea of rent to buy...? Anyone got any experiences they can share, from either side?
 
The was rent to buy for a few months in the apartment block I used to live in. At the time we were paying 800pm in rent for a 1bed and there were other places renting lower. To go down the rent to buy scheme, the rent would have been 1000pm and have locked in the purchase price on the day the contract started.

To further make it worse, the sale price that was being offered through the rent to buy scheme was almost 10% higher than the same sale price being offered for the exact same apartments, just through the builders estate agent.

Not all the R2B schemes were setup this badly but I did see quite a few like it.
 
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