With home prices falling and problems in mortgage markets continuing, buyers and sellers both stand to benefit from creative financing. Buyers wanting to maximize their cash when bargain hunting will find low down creative financing useful. Sellers needing to move properties in slow, under performing markets can use every edge to outperform the competition. Finding an agent who understands creative financing can make all the difference. Unfortunately those agents are, once again, few and far between.

Starting in the late 1990s and continuing through last year, there was a growing market for loans, called “subprime mortgages,” for home buyers who didn’t meet traditional qualifications because of credit, income or job history. These subprime loans, which are now at the heart of the economic crisis facing the country, made getting a very low down payment or even nothing down home loan as simple as going to a mortgage broker, even with bad credit.

Before the growth of the subprime loan market, there were swindlers galore offering to teach people to become real estate investors with no money, no job and no credit using techniques that were outdated at best and illegal at worst. While there were, and are, plenty of legitimate no-money down financing methods such as lease purchase, many of these gurus promoted techniques that constituted mortgage fraud.

Fortunately for buyers, there are still legitimate techniques for privately financing at a low down payment and for qualifying borrowers FHA, VA and USDA loans still offer loans with 0 to 3.5% down. And sellers willing to get creative and consider options like lease purchase or owner financing may actually benefit from the problems in the mortgage markets.

Disclaimer: This is not an offer to extend credit, is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide specific financial, investment, tax, legal or accounting advice for you, and should not be relied upon in that regard.