What Iron Stake does, what a seller promises when they list, how seller billing works, and what buyers should understand before contacting a seller.
Iron Stake publishes lease-to-purchase property listings. A seller advertises a home with all of its material terms stated up front; a buyer reads those terms and contacts the seller directly. That is the whole product.
What Iron Stake is not, in each case deliberately: not a lender, not a mortgage broker, not an escrow or title company, not an appraiser, not a property manager, not an inspector, not an insurer, not a party to any lease or option, and not anyone's legal representative.
Iron Stake is a subsidiary of ACHV Capital LLC, a Delaware limited liability company.
Iron Stake is a proptech company building a transparent marketplace for rent-to-own and lease-option homes.
Iron Stake provides accounts, private seller drafts, administrator review, saved homes, buyer enquiries and seller checkout. Payment is required before a new listing is submitted for administrator review, except in a state where Iron Stake is not yet taking payment: there, a listing may be submitted for review without payment, and it is not published until payment opens in that state and the seller pays.
Homes explicitly labelled as samples are invented demonstrations. A real property can appear publicly only after a seller submits it and an administrator approves the reviewed version.
Iron Stake operates as an advertising platform. Sellers pay a flat annual fee to publish a listing; buyers read it and contact the seller directly. We are not licensed as a real estate broker or agent in any state and we do not act as one.
In practice that means we do not negotiate for anyone, do not hold or handle funds, do not show properties, do not prepare or sign anyone's agreement, do not represent either side, and are paid nothing at closing. Our review of a listing before publication (§5) checks that the required terms and disclosures are stated; it is not advice about the deal and it is not participation in it.
Real estate, advertising and lease-option law vary by state. We offer the service only where we may do so without a licence, and we may decline or remove a listing for a property in a state whose rules would require us to be something we are not. Sellers remain responsible for their own licensing, registration and disclosure obligations (§6), and buyers should confirm the requirements of their own state before signing anything.
You must be at least 18 and able to enter into a binding contract. The service is offered for property located in the United States, to users in the United States.
Browsing requires no account. Listing a property requires that you are the owner of record of that property, or are formally authorised to act for the owner — see §6.
Before a property is listed, an administrator reviews the material terms, disclosures, photographs and property details, and requires that all eight material terms of the option are complete. The seller, not Iron Stake, attests to ownership (§6). Review of ownership evidence is a planned addition; until it is in place we do not confirm ownership of record or search title, and nothing on this site should be read as saying that we do.
What review is not:
Review is included in the advertising fee and is never sold as an upgrade. A listing is reviewed or it is not published.
By listing a property you represent and warrant, each time you list and for as long as the listing is live, that:
If any of this stops being true, tell us and remove the listing. We may remove it ourselves — see §19.
Sellers pay a flat advertising fee. Buyers pay nothing — not to browse, not to contact a seller, not to complete a purchase. There is no commission on any sale, and no charge on either side at closing.
The current seller pricing rules are:
Browsing is free and requires no account. A free buyer account is required to save a real home or send an enquiry. Every listing shows its price, option fee, credit, term and the rest of the material terms before you contact anyone. Your enquiry and confirmed account email are delivered to that property's seller so they can reply directly.
What we do not do for you: we do not vet the seller's willingness or ability to complete, inspect the home, value it, arrange financing, hold your money, or advise you on whether the deal is a good one. A lease option is a substantial financial commitment in which an option fee and accrued credits are commonly forfeited if you do not purchase. Get your own attorney to read the agreement before you sign it, and get the home inspected.
You keep ownership of the photographs and text you upload. By uploading them you confirm you own them or have permission to use them, and you grant Iron Stake a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, resize, reproduce and display them in connection with operating and promoting the marketplace, including through the hosting and delivery services we use.
One trap worth naming, because it catches homeowners constantly: photographs from a previous MLS listing, a former agent, or another listing portal usually belong to the photographer or the brokerage that commissioned them — not to the homeowner, even when the house in them is yours. Having appeared in the listing of your own home does not give you the right to republish those images. If you are not certain of the provenance, take new photographs.
Every photograph on the site today is a licensed stock image used to illustrate a sample listing. None of them is the home at the address shown.
The site, its copy and its design belong to Iron Stake or its licensors. You may read and print them for your own use in connection with a transaction on the platform. You may not republish, resell or redistribute them, or use them to build a competing service.
We do not supply agreement forms. The eight material terms are a disclosure standard for listings, not a form of agreement. You and the other party document your own agreement with your own counsel, and nothing on this site tells you which terms to accept — see §15.
If you believe material on Iron Stake infringes your copyright — most likely a photograph of a property — email doug@iron-stake.com with your contact details; identification of the work you say is infringed; identification of the material and its location; a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised; a statement that the notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act for them; and your signature.
We will remove or disable material in response to a valid notice, tell the person who posted it, and restore it if they send a valid counter-notice and the complainant does not file suit. Accounts that repeatedly infringe will be terminated.
Do not:
Iron Stake supports equal opportunity in housing. Listings, photographs and communications through the service must not state or imply a preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, familial status, national origin or disability — and many states and cities protect further characteristics, including source of income, sexual orientation, gender identity, age and marital status. We will remove any listing or content that does, and may suspend the account behind it.
Any lease, option or purchase is between the buyer and the seller. Iron Stake is not a party to it, does not sign it, holds no money under it, and has no role in its performance. We do not guarantee any listing, any user, any statement made by a user, or any outcome.
If a transaction goes wrong, it goes wrong between the two of you. We will co-operate with reasonable requests, and we would rather hear about it than not — but we cannot resolve it for you.
This is not a formality we recite. It is the reason the eight material terms are published on every listing rather than explained on a phone call: the product's job is to make the terms visible so that your own advisers can do theirs.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, the service is provided as it is and as available. We do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted or error-free, that listings are accurate or current, that sellers are reliable, or that any particular result will follow from using it. Listed monthly amounts may not cover taxes, insurance, HOA dues or maintenance. Any calculator or worked example on this site is an illustration, not a quote or a projection.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Iron Stake is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost opportunity, or the failure of any transaction to complete.
A cap on total liability belongs here and has not been set.
If you list a property, you agree to indemnify Iron Stake against claims arising from your listing, your conduct, your transaction, your breach of these terms, or your failure to comply with law that applies to you.
We may remove a listing or suspend access if a listing appears false or incomplete, if review cannot be completed or a listing is later contradicted, if content breaches §12 or §13, if we receive a valid copyright notice, or if we are required to by law. Where it is possible and appropriate we will say why.
These terms are governed by the law of the State of Delaware, where ACHV Capital LLC is formed, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules.
We may update these terms. The revision date at the top changes when we do, and material changes will be published before they take effect. Continuing to use the service after a change means you accept the updated terms; if you do not, stop using the service and remove your listings.
If any provision is unenforceable, the rest stands. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these terms; we may assign them to a successor to the business. These terms, with the privacy policy, are the entire agreement between us about the service, and they replace anything said elsewhere on the site — though where the marketing copy on this site makes a specific promise about our conduct, we intend to be held to it.
Iron Stake, a subsidiary of ACHV Capital LLC · Equal Housing Opportunity. Questions about this document: contact us.
Office: 4030 Wake Forest Rd. Ste. 349, Raleigh, NC 27609. Email: doug@iron-stake.com.
How accounts, listings, enquiries, service email and Stripe billing use and protect personal information.
Read the privacy policy