Christian Osgood explains why subject-to deals are risky: they let you take over someone's mortgage without assuming the loan, but the lender can trigger a due-on-sale clause and demand immediate repayment. Seller financing is cleaner because the seller finances their equity directly.
Chapters
Seller financing, subject to. What is the difference? Why don't we use subject to? We're going to answer that right here. So with seller financing, you can finance anything that you own. So if you have equity in a property, you've paid it down a lot, you can finance that equity to someone else. If there's a lot of debt on the property, you can purchase it subject to the existing debt. Now, this isn't a strategy. This is just a clause on what's called a land contract, another legitimate way to buy real estate. We actually have lots of things we buy on a contract. However, we do not use the subject to clause because it triggers the due-on-sale clause. A bank can call the note due because the note is not in your name. The property has changed hands. It is traded. It has sold. Now, are there ways around this? Yes, but why add steps? There are so many ways to buy real estate with creative finance. Just focus on the ones that you can buy clean and simple. Get the property and the debt in your own name.