Buying a house - dealing with banks.

[ZZ-kai-]

I need as much advice as possible. My chapter and the House Corp. have been raising money for probably 6 years now and have finally cracked the $40,000 mark. We thought we had a decent amount of money saved and had an offer written up for a house - the offer was written "upon approval from the bank". Well, the bank didn't think that 20% was enough of a down payment, considering the house was to be used as a "fraternity house".

The bank didn't decline our loan, they just required one of two things:

A. All seven board members sign a personal guarantee stating that if the fraternity closes, all seven of the House Corp members (including myself) are responsible for the loan. This does go on our credit history - if we try to buy a house for ourselves, the bank will see that our name is attached to the fraternity house a guarantor.

B. We raise enough cash to pay 75% of the purchase price up front. Good luck with that I say (about another $60,000-$80,000).

So, in a nutshell, I am looking for lenders, banks, anyone that could help us out. We already lost out on a 4,000 square foot house because the seller decided to go with another buyer because we had too many stipulations.

PS, we have a small Greek campus, with small Greek housing. We are looking at improving our housing to 15 men - this is big on our campus. Total spending of about $150,000 - $200,000.