It was a creative real estate investing course.  

A lot of condos here in Las Vegas run into trouble with financing because the owner occupancy for the community is < 50%, but generally speaking the bank should tell you precisely why.If you don't want to put any cash down, you can research creative financing techniques here on BP, but the more creative the solution, the less appealing it is (generally speaking) and is a tough sell in a hot market. 

If I was in your situation I would look at creative financing. 

If you find a lender who does online appraisals or creative structuring, you might be able to find a 2nd lender.

Or could I have done something more creative?

I actually a big believer in Judicial creativity.   

.- Success track record, creative problem solving, and great eyes for beauty in making ugly place beautiful while not spending a ton of money upgrading.- Since 2002, experience in SFH purchase, buy and hold, remodeling, property management.What gets me going:- Folks with track record in apartment investing to check out my financial model on this deal- Local Chicago Team with proven track record in apartment: contractor /inspector (subcontractor - plumbing, electrical, roof, exterior, interior upgrading), property managementThank You!

Unfortunately, it is six months, not four.I contacted both my current lender to see what it would cost to extend my lock for another couple of months (around $2k) and reached out to the previous lender to see if that's something they would want to cover to avoid the EPO recapture, which I believe would be quite a bit more than $2k.They had no interest in doing that, so before making a decision on how to proceed, I wanted to gather a bit of collective wisdom from the forums.My first question is, does anyone have any creative ideas for how to work around this?  

This off time is where creativity is born.Our bodies were designed to adhere to this command.

Right now I'd have to be very creative to get a sizeable down payment.