I was required to have 2 appraisals and they tried to get me to guarantee the roof for three years even though no roof work was done.

You want a service provider who will give you high bandwidth and a guarantee that you can drive fast, uninterrupted.

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.

I can get a business credit card very easily by giving a personal guarantee, but I'm looking to do this strcitly under my EIN number.

Sellers had no worries at least with mine as we guaranteed the loan with an assumption contract allowing me to buy the property before foreclosure or the note.

IMO.In my career, my largest liability was the guarantee of notes, in the millions, but I could always sell the onligations or the properties, refinance them or modify them, so to say that I was totally at risk is not a true concern.

You could specifically allow a loan assumption with your guarantee for example.

Jonathan,I've been asked to personally guarantee all business credit lately...have you had a different experience with business credit in the last year??

This could actually include stuffing your cash in a mattress during a deflationary period because the buying power of your hoard increases, however, for most intents and purposes, saving is socking your dough away in an institution, often insured, with a guaranteed return, usually very small, but you can literally bank on it.

11. 7 day 100% money back guarantee - for any reason - Full refund of the purchase price of the note minus any payments made to buyer and title preparation fee.12.