I'm going to seller finance another one

[Frank Adams]

and I could use some advice on some options I'm considering.

I got this place for $50K in '03 and sold it the day of closing for $65K without lifting anything but a pen. Now 7 1/2 years later my buyers need to upsize but the economics of the small town make it tough to get conventional financing for purchase. A couple of years ago I still had 8 seller financed sales in town but 3 have refinanced since late 2007.

Because they had a fair amount of traffic in the high $70K range, both when trying to FSBO and had it listed for $83K, later reduced to $79K and got traffic, but everyone was looking for seller financing. These guys don't have a pot to pee in so they don't have the option and I'm not restructuring the mortgage so they can profit.

Anyway we have a deal for me to give them $2K, forgive their mortgage and resell it. They put the FSBO sign back in the yard with my number and I've had a few interested calls, one from somone who looked at it with the agent.

Since I'm going for $88,000 I'm no longer interested in getting a mere $2K downstroke so I'm considering some ways to goose that a bit when people often don't have big bucks to put down. Plus one year's insurance and the $400 for document preparation, which I do myself.

Some of the possibilities;

1. Make the first mortgage smaller, but use a few consecutive second mortgages at high interest rates. This would give them an incentive to pay those off quickly, while not making their payment real high "forever".

2. Delay the closing until they've paid me an few extra thousand $$. Since this is TX I can foreclose and get the place back about as quick as eviction and for the same amount of money.

Any other ideas?

I've got a couple of weeks to finalize since they're not ready to move out and I can't travel until after June 3rd anyway.

Thanks in advance.

Frank