But in a declining market, you have to drop the price below the "market price" to sell anything.

Each lender has their own policies on how they view the "benefit to the borrower:" mentioned by Jonathan Rex above and you want to steer WAY clear of this for reason 3 below. 3.

The bank rejected my original offers, eventually lowered the price to below my original offer, and I offered even lower than that.

When you run reports, you can filter them by class.

Below 600 so the only loan I can get is an FHA loan on my existing house (which is paid for).

It may work in some markets but in my area all the offers I see are still 10-20% below the asking price, regardless of how low the asking price is!

I have seen them reject an offer, then 30 days later drop the price below the rejected offer.

whenever you start 'playing' with the numbers to 'try' to make it work, you'll always end up losing sorry for not reading the rest of the post, I just want to tell you what I think about the first 2 paragraphs.Edit: Jon below me brought up a wonderful point!

I've kept the cost to below 10k, and with a raise in rent of $300.00 per month, this will be paid off in less than 3 years!

Buy at around 10-15% below.