That payment of part or all of the purchase price is not an essential feature of part performance is evident from the rule which applies to oral promises to make gifts of realty. If, in reliance upon such oral promise, the donee takes possession of the realty and erects valuable improvements thereon, specific performance will be decreed, though the original promise was not a valid contract because of want of consideration and if a valuable consideration had existed, the statute of frauds would have applied to the original promise.1