Frequently asked questions

Yes! You can purchase the house anytime throughout the lease period. We would never want our clients to rent longer than they need.

This may vary from situation to situation and will be pre-determined and agreed upon between you and the landlord before the lease starts. Generally, If you buy your home within the first 12 months of the program, you’ll pay a buyback price that’s 4-6% higher than the home’s original appraised value. After 12 months, the price could go up by 1-1.5% every 3 months. This way, if you buy the house mid-year, you are not paying for the whole year’s Home Price Appreciation.

When we set your budget, we do our best to ensure that you will be able to get a mortgage at the end of the 1 to 3 year program. Our calculation takes into consideration your debt-to-income (DTI) ratio, savings balance, preferred rent amount, desired home price and many other such variables.

Utopia re-reviews your application once an offer on a property is made. The purpose of this process is to ensure that you are still eligible for our program and your income has not changed since the initial approval.

You will need to submit your most recent income document(s) to the Underwriting team who will review the document(s) and complete the re-verification process.

Failure to submit the document or meet Utopia eligibility requirements during this process may result in the termination of the offer.

Homebuying could be a very competitive process, so, one can’t guarantee we’ll always make the winning bid. Although, the odds are high with Utopia offers as they are reasonably priced for the Landlord to agree to.

As a company, we want to make sure our customers get the best possible price and a monthly payment that works with their budget. So, we'll always ask for your approval before settling on a price, so you can make sure you’re comfortable with their payment plan moving forward.That’s why, we encourage customers to manage their expectations and be prepared to make more than one offer before a landlord accepts.

Our real estate experts work with you and the landlord in an arms length manner to offer competitive offers based on market conditions as well as on the recent sale prices of comparable properties in your area. We work with you or your agent to negotiate the lowest price we can, and pass on the savings to you in the form of lower rent. We’ll always take your feedback into account regarding our offer price before we make an offer to the landlord.

No, Utopia is not a lender. However, We are happy to connect you with our partner mortgage lenders who could get you the best rate or option possible.

We strongly recommend you to attend your dream home inspection. As the future owner of the home, it’s helpful to walk with our inspectors, see the home through their perspective, and learn critical features within the home like gas shut-offs, water shut-offs, HVAC filter locations for maintenance purposes, etc.

The general condition of the home, especially cosmetics, should ultimately be accepted by you during both the inspection and final walk-through.

Utopia will present the list of repair requests to the Seller after the inspection. The Seller has two options:

a) Complete the repairs prior to closing.
b) Refuse the repair requests.
‍

In many cases, the Seller will offer partial credit or repairs. Utopia and your agent will prioritize the repairs and negotiate with the Seller. Repairs are addressed before moving forward with the rent to own purchase of the home.