House rich, cash poor

　　Your parents paid for braces, college and maybe eve n your first car. Now, on the brink of retirement, they 're a bit short but resist taking money from their chil dren.

　　Well, where there's a family house, there's way to help:seller financing.

　　"It's a good tool if you've safely invested your mo ney," says jay wood, principal at william E.Wood associ ates real estate agency in smithfield, va. "if an owner can finance a piece of real estate and get 8% or 10% ou t of the buyer it's a little more risky but a substanti al increase over 5%."

　　Even so, the risk is pretty small. If the buyer def aults, he loses everything he's paid into the property. "you basically foreclose on your own property," wood ad ds.

　　The transaction worlks like this: the buyer pays a down payment, the seller takes a loan directly from the buyer and the house is transfered. There is no bank the promissory note instead of the full cash amount and the buyer agrees to a monthly payment.

　　There are a lot of benefits to seller financing.

　　First of all, byoffering to carry the note, sellers may attract a broader range of prospective buyers.

　　Seller-financed contracts often command a high down payment, interest rates of 8% to 10%, and significantly shorter terms.

　　This gives the seller a large chunk of cash upfront (预付的) and longer-term annuity income that benefits from the tax treatment of an installment sale.

　　And if the seller wants to be free of the arrangeme nt, he can turn around and sell the contract at a disco unt.

　　But remember, this kind of sale works best when the seller owns the property outright or has a small mortga ge that can be paid off with the buyer's down payment.

　　By kara stefan