When most families here in Springfield, MO and the surrounding area think of moving, they think of either finding a place to rent or a place to buy. There are benefits to both. But there's another option: Renting-to-own!

When you rent-to-own, you get the best of both worlds. When you simply buy a house, sometimes there can be unpleasant surprises, even after an inspection. Perhaps your neighbors are terribly annoying. Maybe there's a lot of loud traffic that you didn't notice before you moved in. Your furnace could go out 2 weeks after closing. If you've already bought the house, you're stuck with it until you sell.

Renting offers more flexibility than buying in that generally your lease allows you to move within a year if the home doesn't suit you. However, there are some big drawbacks to renting a home in Springfield, Missouri. There are numerous stories floating around about landlords who refuse to fix things and only offer sub-par living conditions. Even if you find a great place, it's technically where you live, but it can be hard to make it feel like home if your landlord has given you restrictions regarding whether you can paint the walls or plant a garden. (Side note: We rented a place here in Springfield when we first moved to the area and the house belonged to a nice widow. The drawback was EVERYTHING was pink and hideous floral. The walls, the carpet, wallpaper, the window treatments, our sons' bedrooms, even the siding had a pink hue. Nice house, nice neighborhood, AWFUL color scheme. And she wanted to keep it that way, so we were stuck.)

The glaring drawback to renting and the main reason people want to buy is that they don't want to pay their landlord money every month when they will end up with nothing to show for it. On the other hand, many people who want to own have a difficult time qualifying for traditional financing or can't come up with a 20% down payment. 

Our rent-to-own program here in Springfield, MO gives you the best of both worlds! Our typical terms include a two-year "test drive" in which you can move into the house and treat it like your own. You can paint, wallpaper, build some shelves, grow your own vegetables - you've got the freedom to make it yours. If you decide it isn't the place for you after that 2 years, you aren't stuck with the house -you can choose to look for something else, no questions asked. During that time, you can work to improve your credit so that ultimately you can buy the home outright if that's what you choose to do. Before you move in, you pay an "option consideration", which is ultimately applied to the purchase price of your home and is much smaller than a down payment you would pay through the bank.

People who rent-to-own from us love our program!