A little unsure if this is the right forum or if renting is more correct as this falls a little between the two
I'm a rather inexperienced divorcee, doing this for the first time alone.
I find myself in a situation where I agreed to and signed up on a lease to own house, set at a price.
This was right smack in the middle of the housing slump and, around here at least, there were a lot of houses unable to sell and suddenly going up for rent or lease to own.
We love the house, and though it's a lease to own situation, rent is fair and not higher than it should be for this area. Our Landlord/seller is excellent and seems to be a truly nice person. It seems likely to presume he was having problems selling, and took this path because of that.
The problem is that the house is no longer worth the asking price.
According to zillow it's worth roughly 35k less than the price we locked in on, and so my question is one of advice and opinion.
I don't want to purchase a house that is already enormously underwater before the fact, and I'm not entirely sure I could even obtain the mortgage with this in mind.
With this in mind, I'd imagine that the seller wouldn't be too hasty to have us back out as he will not be able to obtain the original asking price anyway should he just try to sell it (even after keeping our float of money should the lease to own fall through and we do not accept it and buy the house after our lease time is up.)
What is the best way I have to go ahead here? Should I get the house revalued? Should I approach the seller (our lease still has roughly 6 months left on the 2 year lease).
As I say we love the house, but it's not worth the original asking price any more and I find myself a little in the dark as to what to do next. Even a continuation of the renting situation is an option for us...We just don't want to, and I'd imagine from a banks perspective? not be able to purchase a house now priced so far out of it's bracket.
Many thanks in advance.