<prompt> Human: A family member is going to sell a house theyve inherited and Im interested in buying it. I havent discussed it with them yet but based on our relationship Im sure theyd be happy to sell it to me without listing it first.How should this process differ from a normal home purchase? Is it possible to structure things in a way that will save one or both of us money on taxes, closing costs, etc.? Or should both parties proceed as if this is a sale to a complete stranger?  <response>: We bought our house from a relative. Since there were no real estate agents on either side of the transaction, our out of pocket fees were about 300 to the appraiser and another 500 to the title company, which did the title search and handled the transaction for us. Since we live in a relatively high cost of living area this saved approximately 30K in agents fees and resulted in a correspondingly lower price. You have to be careful with buying from a relative at a below market price, though--since its not an arms length transaction there can be tax implications for the seller. Basically you just need to be able to justify that its roughly market price when everything is taken into account. The biggest place where we saved money, though, is that the seller offered us seller financing, which means we are paying them directly every month rather than going through a bank. This is a real, legal mortgage, but they gave us very favorable terms 10 down, no PMI, no closing costs, 3 interest rate. It worked out really well for both sides because for tax reasons our seller did not actually want a big cash influx but knew we would be reliable payors. 