Seller Financing - What have your terms looked like?

[Jeremy H.]

I'm starting to look for more creative financing methods especially given the market is starting to shift - and trying to figure out the "how" to make deals work as opposed to just leaving it once a traditional method doesn't work out. Obviously not willing to rationalize a bad number by underestimating expenses, just trying to get more creative here. 

For those of you who have done a seller financing type deal, what did the terms look like? I'm trying to get an idea of what to expect here as well.

And maybe for those of you that haven't what would your expectations be? What would you say yes to and more importantly, what would make you say no?

I have a few private money lenders to work with that offer 8-10% a year for a short term loan (more money available than I need or could use at this point) - works great for rehabs. I also have my 401k loan which works good for the rehab portion of a property as well. And around $100k liquid that I'm willing to mess with. Not willing to touch existing retirement accounts/index funds/HSA etc. 

I had a recent opportunity with an old tired landlord essentially liquidating his portfolio - thing is he's asking market prices for his properties, they have a ton of deferred maintenance, locations are varied, and he offered a seller finance deal - 8.5% interest, up to 50k, up to 5 year loan term. LOL. No way, no how. That helps with nothing - that's nothing short of him attempting to make an additional greedy investment in my eyes. I input varied amounts into my spreadsheet and his terms make things 100% worse - this is obvious but I like to see numbers just to see exactly how bad it is. 

I'm trying to figure a way to make some of these deals work out but I have absolutely no problem saying no. Takes me 10 min to put in an offer - I've got declined by him 5 times...and he has yet to sell a single property. Currently has 10 between the MLS and off-market - 5 of which I'd be interested in. I tried packaging similar type homes in one offer, but I'm at 75% of what he's asking at the MAX. I will not go $1 more. I am also talking through a middleman (his life long friend) I'll look up his contact info and see if I can't get him face to face and show him some numbers. May not make him budge - but he has an opportunity to off-load and make quite a bit of profit (not at market prices though).

Any other strategies you all may be able to think of on that side too?