Q. I put my house up for sale and found a buyer, but then the buyer backed out. I have no mortgage on the house, which was paid off years ago. Meanwhile, I found my dream house and don't want to lose it. Is there anything I can do? I will need at least $500,000.

A.You are not alone in having trouble selling your house. There are far more homes for sale than there are buyers right now. But you have the major advantage of owning a home with no mortgage.

We are at a disadvantage by not knowing how much your current home is worth. You say you need $500,000. Is that the purchase price of the home you want to buy?

You could finance the purchase by using a home equity line of credit on your current home to provide the down payment and borrow the balance with a mortgage on the second home. When your current home is sold, you can use some of the proceeds to pay off the home equity line, leaving yourself with a single mortgage payment.

But that isn't quite the slam-dunk it sounds.

We always hesitate to suggest borrowing against a home that is paid for, because an asset like that is priceless. Anytime you take out a new mortgage, you're putting that asset at risk.

You'll need enough income to keep up the payments on the new mortgage and the line of credit -- expect to pay $600 to $700 a month for every $100,000 you borrow, just for principal and interest. After including property taxes, insurance and any condo or homeowners association fees, your total costs probably will be more like $900 to $1,000 a month for every $100,000 you borrow.

Our mortgage calculator and home equity loan calculator can help you figure out the payments for any amount, any rate.

With the current state of the real estate market, you should be prepared to keep making all of those payments for an extended period. It could take more than a year to find a buyer, and you might receive far less than you expect, especially if it's in one of the states where prices and home sales have slumped the most -- California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio or Michigan. So you need to be able to keep making all of those payments for a while.

Our required income calculator will help you decide how much you can afford to borrow.