owner fianance or lease to own

Quite a few folks around here sell on contract. I'm told that essentially you pay for the house in monthly installments. The catch is that most contracts have a clause written into them that if you miss a payment the house reverts to the owner and you forfeit any money you've already paid into the house. I'm told several guys around here make a good living doing that. In one instance the person was within months of paying off their house, missed a payment and they lost it. Most of the time though they miss after a year or two and they figure it is easier to start over than to find another place to move to. As I understand it, very few of the places actually ever get "sold" since invariably someone eventually misses a payment. Miss a payment or not it is an extremely expensive way to buy a house form what I'm told and about the only people who do it are those with bad credit who can't get into a house any other way. Probably become even more popular now that credit rules have tightened back up.