Looking for Help

Look for more lenders. You should be able to find financing. The sad truth is that institutional lending is more so dictated by Wall Street than it is by rational procedure. This is what both caused the housing bubble and now the credit crunch.

Here's why... when some banks started their loose lending practices and were getting big returns the other banks followed because they didn't want to miss out when their shareholders were demanding they get those returns also. Instead of shareholders viewing the conservative lending as responsible, they viewed it as incompetence. So for banks to keep up with the loose lenders, they started taking on lots of subprime and otherwise non-AAA paper. This loose lending is what created the housing bubble and the foreclosures we are seeing now.

However, now that Wall Street is freaking out about bad paper on the books, banks don't want to take on anything except AAA paper to offset the bad loans on their books to stabilize their assets and share prices.

Even though it sounds like you would be a safe loan to most given your credit and income, on the books, it will be seen as a zero down, investment property, self-employed, which likely won't be counted as a rock solid loan. This is why you are having trouble. You just need to find other lenders if the institutional banks won't do it. If you had more equity in your condo, or you had money to put down it would be probably be no problem.

Maybe try lendingtree.com and see what comes back? Do you have a renter lined up for the property already? If not, a signed renters agreement will help getting the loan.

Have you asked the seller if they will carry the loan?

When all else fails you can simply do a reassign if you've found a good deal.

You have lots of options, you just need to get creative. This is what Dean Graziosi is teaching us. If it were easy and there wasn't obstacles to overcome, everyone would do it and it wouldn't be practical (and there wasn't obstacles a year or two ago, and everyone did, and see what happened).

A little persistence and creativity, thinking outside the box that everyone else is thinking is the answer to overcoming these obstacles. This is why people who can do these things have an opportunity now, while everyone else is scratching their heads and wondering how anyone could possibly make a nickel in real estate right now.

You want to make sure you are talking with mortgage brokers instead of banks. Banks and credit unions are going to have more restrictions then other lenders.
You will also want to go to investment clubs in your area and see what other investors have to recommend for mortgage brokers that they currently use or have used in the past to help overcome this problem.
Assignment of contract is another great way to build up the cash to be able to put down on properties in the future.
Having the seller carry back a note or doing a lease option is a creative way. This is going to depend on what you are planning on doing with the property as well. If you are planning on holding onto it this is a great option.
Depending on what you are planning on doing with a property you can use hard money lenders to buy, fix and sell or to wholesale properties.

In addition to the other suggestions thus far, consider asking your lender where the money needs to come from. Some underwriter require the money to show from a savings account for the last 2-3 months, other don't care where the money comes from. They may allow you to use a personal credit line to cover the down, instead of your own money.

i think thats going to be your best bet right now. Either go with a MORTGAGE BROKER which will give you an array of options, or just simply start applying @ different lenders with lower under writing criteria, AND i actually just gave that exact same advice to another DG member earlier, in terms of asking your bank for a personal loan, as long as they dont care where the moneys coming from, great minds think alike, jjensen