Selling on contract is an excellent approach in a tight-credit situation. You can ask a reasonable down-payment, maybe 6% interest, and, if the buyer defaults, it's easier to recover the property. Down-side is state excise (sales) tax (paid at sale), home-owner's insurance (that you should maintain to assure coverage), and fees to some local representative of your interest.

Taking Chris' approach (my version of it), you could do a rent-to-buy with no interest (but a substantial "deposit") where the "renter's" interest becomes an increasing per cent of equity on the following basis: first you get a current market appraisal, then each month's "rent" (constant rate?) is added to the "renter's" equity (which already includes the "deposit"). If you and "renter" agree to sell to third party in the future, the portion for you is your appraisal, divided by appraisal plus total "rent" payments, times the sale price; "renter" gets the remainder.

If OTOH "renter" wants to cash you out - and if you agree to sell - total "rent" is subtracted from appraised value, and "renter" pays the difference to you. Of course, this type of transaction would leave out all consideration of advantage with respect to inflation, deflation, and relevant market changes; but some kind of formula could be added to the original contract, designed to consider such factors.

paul spencer