Did you know that you can turn your house into mailbox money?!

What’s Mailbox Money?! Well it’s kinda like rent (in some cases it is rent…) but without the headaches of being a landlord!

NO TENANTS! NO TOILETS! NO TERMITES!

A monthly check in the mail for many many years to come and you don’t have to worry about the house anymore.

So how can I sell my house and still continue to earn money from it?

1.) The most common way with the least amount of headaches and complications is Seller Financing AKA Owner Financing.

When you seller finance a house, You can continue to earn principal and interest payments on the note over time. All the terms are NEGOTIABLE between the seller and the buyer.

You may also be able to spread out tax liability over time (Speak with your CPA about this).

When you seller finance the property, you also don’t have to deal with maintenance, repairs, property taxes (make sure the new owner is paying the taxes though!), and insurance (make sure the new owner carries adequate insurance and adds you as an additional insured). If you were a landlord of the property and rented it out to tenants, you would have to pay for property insurance, taxes, and maintenance. It’s not for everyone but it can be an option to continue to earn money from a property over time without the headaches of property ownership.

Make sure that if you decide to seller finance your property that you do so through a reputable real estate attorney to ensure that all paperwork and documentation is done and recorded properly. We always have our closing attorney draft our seller finance documents.

We also highly recommend that you have the note serviced by a professional note servicer. There are many of them out there. We have had good luck with Madison Management but I’m sure there are other good ones out there. It’s worth the $20-30/ month fee to not deal with the paperwork and payments.

WHAT IF THE BORROWER GETS DELINQUENT?! Well that’s absolutely a risk that might happen… Anything can happen… If you properly vet the borrower ahead of time you can mitigate a lot of that risk. If you owner financed the home directly to us, and investor. We’re going to do everything we can to ensure the payments are made. If you’re not getting paid, that means we’re not getting paid. I want that paycheck too!

Foreclosure is a relatively easy and fast process in GA since we’re a non-judicial foreclosure state.

You can also renegotiate the terms with the borrower. Unlike a typical renter, an owner finance borrow IS THE OWNER on title so they don’t want to lose the house they worked hard for.

Don’t let those things scare you. You’re more likely to have to evict a tenant than you are to have to foreclose on a borrower.

2.) The NEXT most common form of mailbox money is doing a LEASE-OPTION aka LEASE-PURCHASE

What is a Lease Option?

Essentially a Lease option in GA is 2 different documents/Agreements.

Part A is the Lease Agreement where a property owner would lease the property to the tenant (tenant-buyer in this case) for a given amount per month with other specific terms.

Part B is the Option Agreement. document/Agreement is an option contract. This means that the buyer has the OPTION to purchase the property anytime within the agreed upon timeframe for the previously agreed upon price. Once they choose to exercise their option, they would enter into a formal purchase and sale agreement. Closing would occur as normal. The benefit of this arrangement is that the seller can earn monthly cashflow and in some circumstances, pass on maintenance and repairs to the tenant since they’re ultimately planning to purchase the property. The Seller receives an option consideration for some sort of valuable consideration (could be cash could be something else of value). That consideration is non-refundable. it’s NOT a downpayment, It’s NOT a deposit. Its an option consideration payment. The buyer could choose NOT TO exercise their option to buy, in which case they are out that option consideration because it is non-refundable. The benefit to the buyer is that they get to “lock up” a house they want to buy and it gives them time to secure any funding they made need to ultimately purchase the property. Once they’re ready to exercise their option. You would just enter into a formal purchase and sale agreement just as if you were selling the property outright. In which case a closing would follow in 30-45 days and the title would transfer from you to the new owner.

WHAT ABOUT TAXES?! HOW DOES THAT WORK?!

First of all… WE ARE NOT Accountants. We recommend you seek tax advice from a qualified tax professional. Everyone’s tax situation is unique.

If you sell on seller financing in the traditional sense, many times this treated as an installment sale according to the IRS.

https://www.irs.gov/publications/p537#en_US_2019_publink1000221591

We recommend you read the link above or you review with your Tax Professional.

In a nutshell, you can spread the gain you receive over the term of the note so you’re only paying taxes on what you receive in that given year.

If you’re doing a lease option. It’s treated no differently than any other rental property, the only difference is reporting the option consideration on that year’s taxes as income. Just remember that you may have to recapture any depreciation when you ultimately sell the property, unless you do a 1031 exchange, in which case, those taxes get deferred into the future.

REPEAT! WE ARE NOT Accountants. We recommend you seek tax advice from a qualified tax professional. Everyone’s tax situation is unique.

We personally love seller finance deals. They end up being a WIN-WIN solution for everyone involved.

INTERESTED IN SPEAKING WITH US ABOUT TURNING YOUR HOUSE INTO MAILBOX MONEY???

BE SURE TO MENTION THAT YOU’RE INTERESTED IN MAILBOX MONEY!