Help needed with creative financing!!

[Terrell Phillips]

Hello everyone,

      This is my first post as I've just recently joined BP. I have a question(s) regarding a wholesale opportunity that has fallen into my lap that I would love some detailed suggestions and answers to. I own 3 rentals currently, one of which I live in, so my experience thus far has only been with property management of my own rentals outside of the 2-3 wholesale deals I completed when I first got into investing several years ago.

A former tenant has a home he is assisting a friend in selling and as he knows I'm an investor came to me to assist him with it. His friend wants to sell it for $70k, covering his remaining mortgage and pocketing some money as well. I have located a buyer for the property who is willing to pay no more than $55k. My former tenant would ideally like to purchase the property himself once its been brought up to date by the buyer who is a rehabber of decent reputation in our area. So I'm wondering is there a way to have the former tenant lock the property up for a price lower than the $70k his friend is asking (say the $55k being discussed), and then work out a deal with the rehabber to fix the property up to his liking and once the rehabber is ready to sell my former tenant can buy it and maybe give his friend the remaining money he's asking for?  Also how would I fit into this in any way? Fee up front? I am not familiar with creative financing and I'm not sure how to even begin to structure this, but I feel there is a deal in here somewhere potentially I'm not seeing. Would I split the initial wholesale fee difference between the $55k & $70k? & lastly, are rehabbers typically even open to soemthing like this? Seems like a lot to get into when they're used to just coming in and owning the properties outright before selling to the highest bidder at the end.