Complaint Review: Remerica Capitol - Lansing? Michigan

My wife and I recently went to look at a home in Lansing for a "rent to own"/lease option to buy home on Ottawa Street. We were blown away when we saw it and were going to see what we could do to get this home on a lease to own deal as we were both just out of Bankruptcy and needed a way to rebuild our credit, not to mention we need a new home due to our Bankruptcy issues.

We knew that this home needed many repairs and were "gung-h*o" to get into this home and see if the owners would be willing to work out a deal so that we could move in, do the repairs and when done with the repairs in about a year, be able to get financed to buy this huge home for our large family.

Our Realtor put us in touch with the agent from Remerica Capitol. When we made contact, Richard, the agent that works for Remerica, told us, no problem, we can get you into this home, we'll supply you with the materials to do all of the repairs and you supply all of the labor. Mind you, we also advised him that we were looking to pay no more than $800.00 a month and this didn't sound like too much of a problem.

In the end, Richard, had us meet him at the home located at 1103 Ottawa, and advised us at that time that we could move in at a cost of $2400.00 AND we supply ALL of the materials plus all of the labor and pay $1200.00 a month for the next 2 years on a rent to own option.

Richard decided to take us to see another home located on the North side of the city...I wish I could remember the address to this home. His proclomation was that this home was "The Taj-Mahal" of the neighborhood and that this home was 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and was totally ready to move in to....of course, at a HUGE price.

When we arrived at the home, we first looked at the garage. Nice big 2 car garage with a huge loft above the parking area. Richard advised us that this garage was in "excellent" shape and needed nothing more than some electrical run into it.

Needless to say, my wife and I almost fell through the stairs leading into the upper level of the garage. On to the house...When we went into the interior of this home and first right off....the entire interior of the home had yet to be completed. No carpeting, no tile, no nothing...except a piss poor drywall job that left major gaps between the drywall and the door frames. Then as we went into the basement, where Richard advised us that he personally power washed the entire basement including the subfloor and the floor joists.

Needless to say, as a person with a background in contruction, the first thing I looked for was mold and mildew on the wood. wouldn't you know it, every inch of wood was covered in white mildew. This is going to cause the wood to rot out within the next 10+ years.

When Richard was done with his little pitch on how "awesome" this house was, he then told us that due to the fact that Remerica had sunk $70,000.00 into re-doing this home, it was going to cost us $1200.00 a month over the next 2 years on a lease and then going to cost us $140,000.00 to buy this beautiful piece of cow dung of a home.

What a total ripoff attempt!!!!! The home on Ottawa was by far MUCH larger and listed at $109,900.00 on realtor.com....and that home deal is a ripoff too...that home needs roughly $30k-40k worth of work to it (if done by a contractor). I could have done all of the work myself for far less and at minimal cost to the owners.

Oh well.... back to the drawing board in trying to find another home....hopefully next time, we won't be dealing with another scam artist.

Final note: I looked up the values of both of these homes and the home on Ottawa Street had a true cash value of only 56,000(approx.) and the other home was about 49k true cash value both per the City of Lansing's web site from the Assessors Office.

Eric

Detroit, Michigan
U.S.A.