@Brian Simmons offers a good suggestion as well - a reverse exchange which while more costly than a straight exchange is infinitely cheaper than stroking that tax check.

:)@Anna Kristensen, keep in mind there are different strokes for differen folks... 

Unfortunately I had a brain aneurism and a stroke about 5 years ago and I am still recovering.  

yes this would only be possible if by some very stroke of luck one of your local community banks held the note in their portfolio.if its a big institution then the loan has been sold and sliced and diced and you will never be able to purchase it.. its a 1 in a 100 shot but worth taking all you have to do is pull court records and see who the bene is on the mortgage and any subsequent assignments.. if it ended up for instance assigned to MERS then its gone.. it will go through the system.

@Cherisse Buddy: someone smarter than me on Florida can probably do a better job than my back of the napkin broad strokes below, but maybe this will help you. 

If that were in place,   it would not affect the screening criteria,  except that you would have to track the order that applicants filed (following a complex bureaucratic process of course) and process them in order,  including granting appeals, accomodations (for example for non-english speakers) and re-evaluations that could take days.I'm sure there are more details I'm missing,  but thats the broad strokes.     

Money lending is the easiest thing to do, you simply stroke a check. 

I am not defending their practices.. as I believe anyone who cant stroke a check for training or what have you and needs credit cards should not be doing this at all your under capitalized and risking going into credit card purgatory. 

I can not plant $7,900 worth of trees due to limited space which means a large check will have to be stroked.  

I was a long haul driver until April 2015, my wife had a stroke and I had to be off work and take care of home with money depleting fast and on our way to homeless status its a all in moment.