Just to let you know if you are an investor,broker,agent,rescue company,whatever you are now REQUIRED by Federal LAW to follow these rules or face stiff fines and penalties.http://www.ftc.gov/os/fedreg/2010/december/r911003mars.pdfThis APPLIES to residential real estate and does NOT apply to commercial real estate.

Yes I can tell you deals are owner financed for a reason.Either they do not want to get hit with stiff taxes owed or they are passing off a property with issues.Owner financing is great especially if you get nothing down and just pay closing costs.As long as you have not signed a personal guarantee,cross collateralization of other assets,or made the loan recourse in another way you can walk away unscathed if things go bad.What you will have is time put into the deal fixing the problems and even with no money down have to ask yourself what the return will be for the time invested fixing the problems.I see many owner finance deals I would not touch with a ten foot pole.They are wanting 20 to 25% down.It's better in that case to pay 30% and drive down the price harder with bank financing.One price - all cashOne price - Bank financeOne price- owner financeOne price- Hybrid of bank and owner held secondSo what a seller will accept and what you will accept and pay vary greatly by the circumstances involved.I will say good luck in finding a bunch of smoking hot deals in seller finance.If they are that low they will go for cash real quick instead.The imputed interest provision is real.Sellers do not want to go below prevailing market loan rates as you can get penalized for doing it.There are many other ways however you can structure the deal once you have the interest rate down as low as possible to add value to your purchase.

One close, one deed, one transfer (where all the selling costs are subracted from the sellers proceeds) and the difference between the sellers option price and your buyers purchase price is just one more reduction from the sellers proceeds on the HUD-1.You don't have to worry about what he thinks, and he can't stiff you.

In California if you offer a Lending Instutution holding a mortgage on some poor working stiff citizen's home a Short Sale you will be lucky to get 80 cents on the dollar unless the property is a real distressed piece of work.

good points PNW,,but as far as living in a tin storage unit,,probably NOT today,,,15 below zero wih a stiff 30 mph wind driving it thru the cracks.

Non-compliance carries STIFF penalties ($20+ if memory serves) so talk to your attorney about that.

Generally if it's on the MLS, it's not a great deal and if it is, there is usually stiff competition for it depending on the market.

Except I don't even hear about a job loss in your case so I can't even see where your hardship is coming from other than letting your friend take advantage of you.To answer your question about me, I'm mostly just a random working stiff schmuck homeowner with a couple investment properties on the side.

Competition is stiff.

In particular, RE laws regarding the handling of client money is a regulated activity with stiff penalties.