When you want to be a landlord without owning the property, it’s good to understand the Millennial marketplace. This takes a mindset change that you might need to make as you begin understanding how to become a landlord.
A generational shift is underway, with Millennials finally being able to purchase homes.
What Millennials Want is What Counts
Millennials are now at the top of the food chain when it comes to demographics. What’s important about how to become a landlord is meeting the current needs and expectations of the Millennial generation.
Not only are Millennials the next generation to define a new lifestyle and economy, they have the numbers to make it happen. According to the Pew Research Center (along with government and other reliable sources), 2019 is the year that Millennials officially outnumbered Baby Boomers. The number of Millennials exceeds 73 million while the number of Baby Boomers has declined to 72 million from its peak of 79 million. Yes, the Baby Boomers are dying off and living in assisted care homes.
While Baby Boomers are redefining our health care system and retirement care, the Millennials are redefining everything else. When it comes to suburbia, this means turning it into a version of the city core where many forecasters thought Millennials were destined to remain throughout their lives. Today, Millennials are split between the city and suburbia but the trend is for more baby strollers being pushed past green private lawns than in city parks. Whether it is suburbia or the city, sandwich lease investors provide tremendous opportunities to help Millennials find the homes that they want.
Millennials are prime candidates for sandwich lease options!
Millennials Come of Age and Need Sandwich Lease Options
To say the least, the Millennial generation has had a tough time reaching the age of homeownership. It’s been one financial hardship upon another financial hardship their entire life. Anyone born between 1981 and 1996 (ages 24 to 39 in 2020) is considered a Millennial. As you begin understanding how they will benefit from a sandwich lease option, be aware of these major financial events that have defined their lifetimes.
The stock market crash of 2000 (aka dot-com bubble) happened when the youngest were just born and the oldest were about 20. The NASDAQ rose five-fold between 1995 and 2000 before losing almost 77% of its value. The result was a loss of billions of dollars (most was their parents’ money). But it took 15 years for the NASDAQ to recover, which was during prime Millennial time.
The financial collapse of 2008 (aka the Great Recession) happened in the meantime. This is of concern to real estate investors because the bottom fell out of the mortgage market and foreclosures hit all-time highs. Millennials remember these times well because becoming a homeowner was out of the question for many years.
Student loan debt is still part of the financial equation for Millennials looking to become homeowners today. As of 2019, there was still $497.6 billion in outstanding student loan debt for about 15.1 million borrowers. This affects credit ratings and saving for a down payment. This is an important consideration when deciding how to become a landlord using sandwich lease options. Understanding student debt needs to be part of your evaluation of credit reports.
Retirement pensions became a thing of history. Financial security no longer includes a retirement pension. Millennials have to rely on 401k accounts only partially funded by employers. But as 401k accounts grow in value, they are also a source for funding homeownership for Millennials.
Today, bidding wars are the new normal (along with COVID). This means sandwich lease options are very helpful to Millennials when a professional investor can give them a helping hand, even if they have financial and credit challenges.
How to become a landlord to Millennials means taking all of this into consideration. You gain even a bigger advantage by knowing where and how Millennials want to buy their first home.
Millennials want homes and communities that are sustainable.
How to Become a Landlord is About the New Suburban City Center
Real estate investors will do well to revisit the formula that revived city cores a few decades ago to attract the once younger Millennial crowd. It’s a simple formula about living and working in the same city neighborhood. It’s a combination of affordability and creativity. For living units, it’s a combination of owned single-family homes and condos. The neighborhoods are diverse with small niche businesses and amenities.
The entertainment venues are next to offices and retail shops. Activity centers are the small parks in the city with open spaces for sports alongside passive spaces for reading, texting, socializing, and working outside of the office. There may even be elements of a 24/7 city with always-open pubs, restaurants, and coffee houses. The city life formula for Millennials is a live, work, walk neighborhood. Sandwich lease options work great in these neighborhoods where young professionals are ready to settle down.
Millennials have also rediscovered suburbia.
Why Sandwich Lease Options Works So Well With Millennials
After years and years of this seller’s market, there are fewer and fewer houses available for sale in suburbia. But Millennials with families have taken a liking to suburbia. Still, they prefer as many city amenities as possible. Walkability and neighborhood parks are big attractions as are smaller niche businesses (pubs, restaurants, and coffee houses).
This is very much about the millennial generation…the most active demographic in today’s real estate market. Millennials (73 million of them) now outnumber baby boomers and the Millennials are much more active in the real estate market than baby boomers who are mostly in retirement.
The few houses available for sale are attracting the most qualified buyers. These are Millennial buyers who are already prequalified for a mortgage. But there is an even larger pool of Millennials who will be buyers if they have a little help qualifying for a mortgage. Buyers who are eager to pay top dollar if someone will give them a chance.
Sandwich lease options are all about helping these people qualify for a mortgage. These are the same people that house flippers are ignoring. And landlords raise the rent every year, which further motivates these people to want to buy a home. Offering Millennials exactly what they want is the niche that you fill with rent to own properties.
Millions of Millennials want to be served by this niche but very few investors are filling the need….
Lease to Own is a Perfect Fit for the Millennial Niche
Today there are tens of millions of Millennials living in city apartments where rents are increasing faster than homeowner equity. They have good jobs but very little savings and haven’t qualified for a mortgage. They no longer want to pay high rents to landlords without the possibility of becoming homeowners. Besides, the few single-family homes on the market are being scooped up by the scarce Millennials who do qualify for a mortgage and investors who know how to work with sellers. All of this makes sandwich lease options the right combination of rent to own that fits the wants and needs of these millions of Millennials.
Into the picture steps the “lease to own” niche expert with a solution to all of their problems. Solutions these Millennials are willing to pay top dollar for. You can get them into a single-family home out in the suburbs. For the cost of a rental deposit on a bigger apartment, you collect the option fee for the ability to purchase. This works both towards the down payment they need and converts into the homeowner equity they want, as soon as they complete the purchase. You offer them a way to improve their credit score to qualify for a mortgage. And it comes with a white-picket-fence-home to raise their family. Having all the right solutions is highly profitable for a niche expert.
Who would have thought that “lease with the option to purchase” offers all of the solutions to the largest demographic group in the tight real estate market of the 2020s? …
Only a sandwich lease option niche expert!
Here is how to become a landlord today using sandwich lease options!
- Investing In Real Estate with Lease Options.
- Advanced strategies for Buying and Selling with Lease Options.
- You’re Wealth Building Arsenal.
- Add Personalized Coaching.
- Cooperative Lease Options.
- Expand to Get the Deed “Subject To.”
- Round it all out by Working with Realtors.
By Wendy Patton
For more than 30 years, I’ve used the Sandwich Lease Option System to earn myself and my students millions of dollars. From my experience, I know there is plenty of room and opportunity in the real estate investment market for everyone wanting to participate to find profitable deals. It’s because of that fact and my personal success that I share the Sandwich Lease Option System with others.
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