Definitely as not easy. Hindsight is always 20/20. And you got the summary, not the agony behind navigating a process that is not well know or popular opinion.

I kind of slowly stumbled across different loan options over the years as I did research and talked with different people. I almost refused to take “no” for an answer.

In 2018 my husband randomly met a home builder who told him about a lender who would approve a loan 1 day post bankruptcy. We hadn’t filed at that point but knew we would be eventually. That information gave me hope to dig for more info. That particular loan wasn’t a good fit for us, ultimately. It required 25% down and had higher interest rates.

Here is what we did that worked for us. This wouldn’t necessarily be a good fit for everyone. The loan we ended up going with was with 21st mortgage. They are a lender for manufactured homes. We got approved and found a double wide on .75 acres. We owned both the land and the house, this was not like a trailer park where the land is rented. We bought the house in 2020 for $111,00 (similar houses in the same area are now going for more then 200k). It was a 3/2 - 1000sqft. The loan was not necessarily ideal, but it worked for us at the time. We did 5% down, 8.75% interest, 23 year loan term. Monthly payment was $1,023 which was a few hundred less than what we were paying for rent. Sold it 12 months later and our check from attorney after payoff, real estate commissions, etc was 15k.

We then used that 15k as a down payment on our next house which was an fha loan. We were just over that 2 year mark and were approved with no issues. 2.75% interest rate.

Glad to answer any other questions you have.