The bank wouldn't loan money on the property without something else as security.

This is where most of us get creative financing....
Some banks will give you vacation loans or whatnot for cheap...and you can use these to purchase the property. Silly isn't it? You can usually find a way around these things. Like sometimes you can't get a mortgage but you might be able to get a personal loan....don't need to specify what its for. Later you can always refinance for a mortgage or take out a mortgage on whatever you purchased/fixed up. Many homesteaders are starting from scratch so have no money down to give or credit history to work from. They use personal loans and such to acquire their means at times. Sometimes even draft up deals personally with current owners as well.

We had an odd experience with trying to finance. We inherited some money when my grandfather died. My mother and I pooled our money together along with my husband to buy a place we all could live. We found 25 acres we wanted, made an offer, and were accepted. When we went to the bank they actually said we had TOO MUCH for a downpayment. But yet, they wouldn't take less as a downpayment, because our income wasn't high enough to approve with this lower downpayment. Does that make any scence at all? So instead we had to make a owner contract with the owner (who thankfully really wanted us to have his property) with a balloon payment due when we had sold my grandparents property (which was in a large town we didn't want to live in, and was under 3 acres).

We couldn't figure out why it was so hard to finance... We had almost $60,000.oo to use as a downpayment and thought the banks would be beating a path to our door! Ha!