Rustico. Thanks. I don’t see this being a logical option for us. You are correct that I was not referring to the option you had suggested.
I assume you mean by your “don’t pay extra” comment is that the combination rent and any premium on rent to apply to a down (including any option fee) should not exceed market rent for the area. So if I decide not to buy the house after living in it, I loose all that, but would be no worse off than if I had rented in the same neighborhood.
The seller is not worse off either in that he/she likely covered their carrying costs and had a strike price locked at the beginning of the option period in a falling market, so can hedge.
I am the one taking more risk it seems and my only hedge here is to have an out if I don’t like the neighborhood after all. But that was my point, I think I already know I do and would, which is why I am really looking to rent in CV, which is not where I would ultimately end up.
Santaluz is more of a logical place to test whether I really like the area or not, though just based on what I have seen, it is my second favorite. This idea seems more applicable to Santaluz. There are indeed homes there I do like currently and even made offers on, but could not come to terms with the sticky sellers. They may have seasoned some more and this option may enable me to hedge my risk on whether we would really like the area as much as we think we would. But even there I hesitate, because I have been there so many times, I am pretty sure we would like it.
So that brings me to places like Cielo where this is an even better idea. Alas, the thing is that I think we have finally eliminated Cielo as an option for us for a number of reasons so no need to do a test run. More importantaly, we only really liked 1 or 2 houses there. The first had a seller that is certain she can get a 2005 price for her house after having it on the market (on and off) since 2006 at that same price and the second was way too high up in the hills for our taste.
