Shorting US treasuries as alternative finance

[Kevin Shein]

Hi all. 

Full disclosure I am new to BP and not an American nor living in the US so am not familiar with many of the nuances of your market. I was just wondering if it would be possible to short US treasuries and use proceeds to fund a property as an alternative form of finance. I'm not sure what average traditional mortgage finance rates from a bank are but in theory couldn't you short a US treasury (lets say 5 year at 1.8%) and only pay the coupon semi-annually. Taking it one step further, in theory whats stopping you from shorting a negative yielding bond in Germany and hedging the FX risk. Just thinking out loud here. Am i missing something obvious? surely its cheaper that traditional finance and hard money? also cash flow's only occur twice a year. Sure you take risk on the bond price movement but if you hold to maturity then not?