I'll try to keep this short.
We live in a house owned by family. It was my grandmother's house, and was paid off. My uncle lived here a while, and took out a substantial loan (I don't know the type right now, but he says he owes about 70k) "against the house" to put a building out back and to add siding to the house. He did no work on the inside. I don't know if he used the loan for anything else.
He has said he will sell us the house for just what he owes on the loan. Right now, we only pay his payment every month, nothing extra. Sounds great, but it needs a lot of work. I don't know if we can get a loan at all considering the shape it's in.
It needs new floors (down to the subfloor) in the kitchen/dining area and in the bathroom, and there is no central heat and air. We use window units and heaters (and we're fine-it's not as bad as it sounds). It also needs new windows.
What is our best course of action? Paying cash isn't an option. Could we get a FHA 203K on a house we're living in as renters? I see that we'd have to use contractors for that (on the floor, for example, bc obviously, the HVAC would have to be professionally done), but we're a construction family, and could do most of it all on our own much cheaper. That makes me hesitate on that. Could we assume his loan? Is there a way at all? What if he put in the central heat and air, we replaced the floors, and then him up the "price" to cover that when we purchase it?
We're just looking into options. Ideally, we'd move out, as we'd like to live in a different area, but right now with prices the way they are, this seems like a decent option. If we could get these things fixed, we'd be much happier here.
I appreciate any insight.