Please. Help. Us creatively structure an offer!

[Jamie Rose]

Hi BP family! 

My wife and I have identified the house we'd like to purchase for a long term investment in family life. We moved to Anchorage 5 years ago and bought a great home on a noisy midtown street. Now we have found an awesome place in the mountains, but that needs significant work for remodel (new boiler, plumbing, insulation, bathrooms, windows, flooring, drywall...). I have the chance with my day job to go to 1/4 time May-July which presents me a perfect opportunity to sweat equity into a remodel, and hire out still over half of it.  

What creative ways could you recommend that we consider for offering the sellers a lease to buy option where I can invest my own capital in a remodel, getting it to a place of being conventionally finance-able? Is this ever a good idea? How could I do that but not risk my own capital being stolen by the sellers?

Part of the puzzle is that we have not sold our current home - and would need a place to live in the interim while remodeling...

I have already been investigating loan programs, local banks (fnbalaska.com) offer a 2-close construction/remodel to long term option that is costly, but works (I used it for a 2004 house to tri-plex and short-plat option). I understand that Fannie Mae backs the HomeStyle program, but that through Wells Fargo this program is hard to get draws etc.