With the $0 cash down seller finance and/or subject to, the seller gets no lump sum?

[Jon Martin]

Just listened to the Pace Morby episodes on the regular and rookie podcasts. Really fascinating stuff but I'm still trying to wrap my mind around a dew details. 

Mainly, in the scenario described where it's a zero cash sale and the owner has a lot of equity, the seller is not walking away with any kind of lump sum like they ideally would in a traditional sale, correct? (Unless the seller negotiates for a certain amount down, at which point it would not be a zero cash down sale by definition). Instead, the seller is financing their own equity back to the buyer over an agreed upon amount of time, and if there is still a mortgage the buyer is also assuming the remainder of the loan?  

Do I have it right? 

[Steve Vaughan]

@Jon Martin. In theory you're correct, but I'd rather spend time saving a few bucks than waste time trying to do a later disregarded,  unicorn transaction.  

Disregarded? Consideration must be exchanged for a RE transaction to be legal.  The seller or their people can come back later and undo for trading in bad faith. 

Plus every transaction has closing costs, recording and title fees, transfer or excise taxes, etc.   You'll have to convince a seller to not only receive no money at closing, but pay for the privilege out of pocket.   

I did an essentially $0 to me sale last year.   The buyer paid the $22k in closing costs (larger transaction) but I wanted to net nothing for tax reasons.   

I pretty much always put down 10% for my SF or sub2 purchases.    These were 80% of my portfolio.   If I insisted on 0% down I would have purchased nothing over 20 years.  I later got all invested back+ easily, but it took time.  Save some $ and forget $0 down nonsense.  

One exception may be a commercial MF with lots of security deposits.    Technically those $ stay in trust, but could be a 'credit to buyer' on the settlement sheet.