That being said if you are willing to start with a smaller property or have more cash reserves than we did as we were preparing for our wedding you can make the deals happen you just have to be creative with it. 

Creative and thank you for sharing, I'm sure this will help a lot of people in the same predicament. 

In your scenario you'd have a potential tax event on that $200K difference.Here's a creative way to access most of that money tax free however. 

I'm not working with equity, or a lot of credit - so I am really trying to get creative, and bootstrap myself up there....

Then creative financing will super charge the deal.

When realtors who also want to be creative financing gurus start giving awful advice.

Speak with a local Realtor who knows the market, but also is knowledgeable about creative financing options.Good Investing...

Does anyone have any other creative ideas?

Curious to hear any creative approaches that have worked in today's market.ARV and future value are speculative so when I am looking at property I am looking at it for longer term - does it fit within my strategy based on conservative estimates.

Could get creative to, maybe issue shares or something.