A lease option allows you to rent and occupy a home while having an option to purchase the home in the future for a fixed amount. Importantly you do not have to purchase, you just have the option to purchase. There are two contracts involved; a lease or rental agreement, and a purchase option agreement to buy the property at a later date.

The overall concept is the same; you occupy a house as a renter and then are able to purchase the house in the future. In fact, these days all the terms are used interchangeably and the differences have become very blurred. It is more important to understand what the person offering a home under any of these programs really means rather than what he/she is calling it.

A lease option would make a lot of sense for you if you were not able to qualify to purchase a home through conventional routes such as a bank or mortage lender.

Although there are a lot of reasons why you might not qualify, there are two very common ones:-

• You don't have enough cash for a down payment
• Your credit is not good enough to get an affordable loan

From the time from when you move-in until when you actually purchase the home, you are able to repair any credit problems you have and also save towards your downpayment.

In addition, our lease option program fixes your purchase price close to close to today's fair market value which means that when you purchase the house you could have a lot of equity built up in the house which helps with your downpayment.

Here is a list of the components to our lease option program and what they mean.

Rent. Just what it says. This is your monthly rent that you pay to occupy the house before you purchase it and is close to the market rent at the time of signing.

Purchase price. This is the price you will buy the house from us for. It is fixed when we sign the contract and will be close to today's fair market value of the house.

Option money This is money you pay us to buy the right to purchase the house. When you exercise your option and purchase the house it is credited towards your downpayment (i.e. you get the benefit of it), however if you decide you do not want to purchase the house, it is non-refundable.

Option period This is the length of time you have to purchase the house before your option expires. Usually we will give you up to 2 years to purchase your home which is plenty of time to repair your credit and save for a downpayment.

Simply put, we think it is the fairest lease option program around:-

• Caledonia Property does not demand large option money amounts of up to $15,000
• Caledonia Property does not charge above market rents
• Caledonia Property does not give you just a year for the option period
• Caledonia Property does not change the purchase price during the option period which would deny you the benefit of the appreciation of the house

We want to work with the best tenant/buyers we can. We want to help you purchase a home at a time when you cannot do so using conventional means. And we want to do so in a way that is fair, reasonable and to the benefit of both Caledonia Property and you, our tenant/buyer.