I recently retired and am planning to move out of the country. I own a single-family house in a desirable area. I owe only about $70,000 on my current mortgage. The value of the house before the recent market crash was about $470,000. Despite the current market, numerous people have looked at the house, but only one has made an offer (a very lowball offer). I am not desperate to sell, but I want to move on with my retirement plans. The house is older, but has recently had about $30,000 in improvements in order to appeal to buyers. Because I will not need the money from the sale of the house, how could I offer a very appealing owner-financed mortgage, perhaps with an introductory "teaser rate"? I called the bank that holds my mortgage, but it does not have anything in place to assist individuals with owner-financing. I could offer the house with a fair rate, but I do not want to have to fly back from another country to collect late payments, foreclose, make repairs or redo legal paperwork. Therefore, I am apprehensive about renting or offering a mortgage to anyone with less-than-perfect credit. Any suggestions you could offer would be appreciated. There are a number of ways that you can market your house with what I call "creative financing."
