It's land-lease home buying, and it also may catch on here as the building industry looks for yet another way to get first- time buyers into homes.

With the land-lease concept, home buyers buy the house but lease the land on which the residence sits. The lease is commonly for 50 years and adjusts annually according to the national Consumer Price Index. Home buyers pay a separate monthly fee for the lease, which usually includes community and maintenance fees.

Proponents see it as a good way to buy a home with smaller closings costs, less money down and lower monthly mortgage payments. For some first-time buyers, it may be the only way to afford a home. For others, it may be a way to get into a single- family home when all other starter homes in the same price range are town houses or condos.

Others in the industry think the method is not without its risks.

What happens when the lease runs out? What happens if the homeowner pays his mortgage, but the landowner defaults? What happens when it comes time to try to sell the home?

"It can raise potential problems down the road," says Ric Edelman of Edelman Settlement Services in Fairfax County. "I'm not sure that I would feel comfortable. . . . personally, I would not buy a land-lease property, and I wouldn't recommend it."

Mr. Edelman says it's "like the difference between leasing a car and buying a car."

The main downside, he says, is trying to sell the property later who would want to buy it from you when it doesn't come with the land? He says the practice has been around a long time, more in commercial real estate, such as office buildings in New York City. But he has heard that it is becoming more popular in residential real estate.

"I wouldn't be surprised if this does pick up," he says, adding that more and more "creative" ways are being used these days to make homeownership more affordable.... "It's an interesting concept, but the impractical concept" is what happens at the end of the lease, says Steve Israel, who heads up Buyer's Edge, an agency for home buyers.

He says 50-year land leases on condominiums in Arlington are expiring, and "as you approach the end of the land lease, the value of the improvements" becomes less.

"It happens all of the time in commercial real estate," Mr. Israel says, but if someone buys a property with a 100-year lease, "99 years from now, in theory, it will revert back to the owners." He says he doesn't imagine that will happen much in residential real estate in Northern Virginia...