Steps to buying the home I am renting?

Hockey2015

Looking for some advice.  I have been renting a home for a few years and was approached by the landlord's real estate agent with a purchase price and first offer. I don't like the offer presented to me and want to negotiate but what steps should I take?

Lawyer, Finding a Real Estate Agent, Appraissal, etc...............

In the agreement that I signed when I rented, I initialed the following: "Fair Market Value has to equal the sellers payoff at time of Sale plus commission owed to Realtor and taxes owed at closing"

and

"Lease to purchase agreement executed by seller's attorney within 30 days from date of lease end."

short+sassy

Whoa!  There are a number of things I am confused about from your post and I'm concerned you signed something really hinky when you first rented the house.

First, from the bottom part of your post, it sounds like you signed a "rent to own" type of agreement when you first rented the house.  If so, it's super weird that a house price wasn't decided at that time.  Although I've never done rent to own myself on either side, I do frequent a large real estate investing forum and I have never heard of an RTO agreement where the price was not already included and agreed upon.

If you did sign a rent to own agreement, it should have included your steps to purchase the house.  For example, typically a portion of your rent goes toward the down payment.

The other thing that's weird is, if the seller wanted to sell the house to you anyway...especially if an agreement is already in place...why would they have even hired a realtor to begin with?  Basically, for a seller, a realtor finds you a buyer and charges a pretty penny for it.  So why even hire one if your tenant might buy the house.  Oh, that's right, because you initialed you would pay the commission if you bought the house.  OUTRAGEOUS!!!  Usually the seller pays ALL agent commissions...including the buyer's agent.

Assuming you did sign an RTO agreement, what are your advantages for buying this house over someone walking in off the street?  Did you put a down payment down already?  Has some of your rent been going toward a down payment?

I need more info to best help you .

But, if there are no advantages/perks you would gain from staying under that agreement, than there is no reason to stay under it.

Before you get into all of the hoopla of buying a house, you don't need an agent to make a counter offer...you can make the counter offer yourself.  However, your own agent can give you comps for the area so you are aware of the value of the house.

Here are the basic steps for buying a house:

--Preapproval from a bank

--Hire an agent, someone other than your seller's agent

--Have your agent put together an offer.  Make sure the agreement includes a financing contingency and an inspection contingency

--Once offer is accepted, hire a home inspector.  Even if you have been living in the house for a few years and think it is in great condition, a home inspector can give you the goods on how much life is left for the roof, the furnace, the A/C, all the major systems of the house.  You don't want to buy a house and then find out a month later that all the wiring is too old and needs to be replaced.

--With an inspection contingency in your purchase agreement, you can now back out of the contract if you no longer want to purchase the house after the inspection.  Renegotiate the price if major problems are found, but you still want the house.  Or proceed to closing with the contract as is.

--Your bank will require an appraisal, they will order one for you.  You need to pay for this cost, up front.  It is one of the last steps before closing

--You don't necessarily need to hire an attorney.  Most closings are handled by a title company and they typically have an attorney.  Or you can use your seller's attorney (sounds like they have one).  A title company or attorney handles who owes what for the property taxes.  But, generally how it works is, if the seller has already paid for this entire year's worth of taxes than the buyer has to pay back to the seller the prorated amount of taxes from the date of closing.  Not the entire year, though.