By far, most of the people who find themselves in dire straits today are those who substituted conventional institutional financing for creativity and patience. They were in a hurry to get in on the housing boom and threw caution to the wind. If they had merely Optioned the houses that they bought, they would have been able to make a lot more money faster by selling the houses they had optioned without the use of debt; and they would have completely avoided being wiped out by negative cash flow and falling values.
It's so simple, when you think of it. All an Option is amounts to a purchase contract in which price and terms are spelled out that the buyer can renege on without penalty. I made a fortune during the Carter price boom without using any bank financing or personally guaranteed debt because of the leverage I could get with my Option.
Today the prospects are even better. All that money that Obama is spending is going to filter down to the market sooner or later. When that happens, interest rates are going to soar along with prices. That means that housing will become fairly illiquid because buyers won't be able to qualify for loans large enough to finance houses whose prices will be moving much faster than appraised values. Options will be just about the only game in town. If you haven't started using them, you should be doing so now. If you don't have any idea of what I'm talking about, there's a mall booklet in our bookstore that should get you started.