What success have people had with 100% Seller Financing?

[Elliot Vann]

Hi Bigger Pockets, I was wondering if anyone had success with completely seller financed deals. What locations? What were the terms for the financing? How did it affect the purchase price? What was your experience throughout? Did you refinance into a conventional loan? Thank you!!

[Jeff Groudan]

We've generally seen downpayments between $10K-$20K for properties below $300 in value.

The less downpayment you pay, the higher the monthly payments are unless you can negotiate down the interest rate.  However, if I am a seller and I am letting you in for no downpayment, I won't have much flexibility left on terms!

We did buy one property for 0% down - the relevant info on the seller motivation was he had a hard property to sell, it needed a lot of work and not much traffic.  He was also stuck on his sales price

We hooked him by offering him his full asking price but in return, asked for 0% down and showed him how over the term of 5yrs, he made much more by offering financing then he would get by taking just a cash offer.   We gave him a cash offer, but well below asking to "contrast" it with our seller financed offer.

It won't always work but look for properties which have been on the market a long time without reductions - that is often a signal that the seller is stuck on a price...