100% owner carry is one way to get the owner his price since with your terms. You can extend the years out to allow the business to support the increased payment. This is especially appealing with retiring owners. I had one owner wanted to extend it 15 years so he was covered through is retirement. Plus you can get owner carry at reduced interested rates than an SBA 11%. 7% is not uncommon.

Seller Financing and terms are a way to do two things. First, you can reduce your debt service by agreeing to reduced interest rates (see @sean bressler above), which gives you the ability to service slightly more debt and therefore pay a slightly higher price. Second, sellers usually (not always) are more lenient than banks when you come upon hard times. Banks have a set playbook and usually perfect their security interest through a UCC filing. Sellers sometimes don't. That allows for some flexibility during repayment.