How do I sell my house by letting someone take over the payments?

scott: How do I sell my house by letting someone take over the payments?
My wife left me and now I need to sell my house, quick. I owe about 145K on it, and it’s worth about 135K. Is it easier to have someone to take over the payments of the existing mortgage than to sell it outright? I’ve never sold a home before, and I know next to nothing about it. Any advice here would be great, thanks in advance. If it helps, my current fixed interest rate is about 6.5%-kinda high I know.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Terry Socia
Ask your lender to do a short sale on it would be best. That way you sell it get out from underneath it totally. If your loan is assumable would be the another alternative. Doing a “contract for deed” would be the easiest by drawing up a contract with the potential buyer and letting them move in but you are still responsible as your name is still on the loan…

Answer by My Take on It
You cannot do an assumable mortgage.
If the bank got wind of this, they would call the loan due.
You could do a lease option or a rent to own to give a potential buyer time to clean up their credit or get their own financing, but just having them take over your loan isn’t an option. If they were to miss a payment or get behind YOUR butt would be on the line, not theirs.

Answer by David Z
you can try that but your lender will not change the loan. the loan will always be in your name until fully paid. so you will be asking a buyer to make your loan payments for you. which means all the tax reporting is for you. so this is not likely to entice a buyer

try short sale. it wipes out the loan and lets you move on.

Answer by LoneRanger
you can only do this if you have an assumable mortgage.

Another alternative might be to rent the property until the value increases, but a short sale might be faster.

Answer by Rush is a band
Generally you can’t sell your home by letting someone take over payments.

It is not easier to have someone take over the payments than to sell it outright – it’s much easier to sell outright.

Since you owe more than it’s worth you have some options, but they’re all bad.

A realtor will charge you 6% to sell your house (on average). That means you need to sell for ~$ 158,000 to pay your realtor and other closing costs and break even. That means your shortfall is about $ 23,000. The easiest thing to do is bring this cash to closing and you’ve sold the house and have no more problems.

Not too many people can bring that kind of cash to a sale of their own house, now you have other, much less desirable options.

Short sale – bank agrees to take less than what is owed to sell the house. Hurts your credit pretty badly. Takes a very long time. Have to have proof of financial hardship.

Deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. Bad for your credit – really bad. Marginally better than a full foreclosure.

Foreclosure. Worst case. Horrible for your credit.

When your credit gets trashed because of one of these options you will not be able to get loans, your insurance rates go way up and you might even get denied for a job because of it! I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear.

good luck!

Answer by Mr Placid
You could do that. But,
1. Who in the world would take over a $ 145K loan in exchange for a $ 135K home? And, the interest is a point and a half above existing rates? Yes, there’s a sucker born every minute, but such suckers are still few and far between.
2. It’s true that most mortgages are “non-assumable,” and the lender has a right to call the loan due. But, as long as the mortgage payments keep coming in, the lender likely will not even notice, and probably not even give a crap. Their alternative would be to foreclose on a home that’s worth less than the loan. They aren’t going to do that.
3. If you assign your mortgage, you still remain on the hook for the loan if your assignee fails to make payments. At a minimum, that will mean a ding on your credit. At the worst, you could still be personally liable for the outstanding balance of the loan.

Best solutions: Let the home go into foreclosure. Or, work out a short sale. Or, sell the home outright, and cough up the extra $ 10K to satisfy the mortgage balance and avoid the need for a short sale. Or, rent out some rooms.