Where a home warranty MIGHT make sense is for someone who is not in a position to budget money from rent for issues or where they cannot allocate sufficient reserves in case of an emergency.

If you have good credit (700+) and you're looking at a long term, single family rental, my guess is you'd fall in that 7.5-8% range.

You don't buy a house sub2 if you don't have sufficient capital to make payments if something happens to your renter/buyer.  

I have a few folks here in the NYC that would be interested at that price range.

Are offers now give a range contingent on if the seller is offering a split for the agent?

I know that's above your range, but you mention self-employment and struggling to qualify for loans.

.- Tourism and Hospitality Businesses: Some local forum post mention that Cookeville has a strong tourism and hospitality industry, which could drive demand for furnished short-term rentals and extended stay hotelsI also checked to see what other listings are available and found about 4 comparable listings ranging from $1300-1500/month.

the answer i'm giving is based on the assumption that you do not want to / can not float the negative cashflow any longer. and note: even if appreciation / debt paydown / tax benefits strongly outweighed the negative cashflow, most investors wouldn't want to / couldn't float that. so that said, i say SELL. you have just over a million dollars in equity (minus transactional costs when you sell), and you could do a 1031 exchange into a ~4 million dollar CASHFLOWING property. i invest long distance into value-add multifamily on the west side of chicago. gearing up for my next deal right now. in that price range you could easily get a value-add multifamily with potential to cashflow 15k/mo+++ (up to 40k/mo) once it reaches its full potential. it sounds like you're in markets that are probably strong for appreciation and weak for cashflow (with the long term rental strategy). if cashflow is your goal, 1031 into value-add multifamily in a higher-cashflow area. don't let having to pay commissions during the sale stop you. you're already losing so much annually; you have to stop the bleeding at some point. also note that right now, with the way these two properties are losing money, that might negatively affect your borrowing power when you go to buy the family home. feel free to dm me if i can help in any way!

(interest rate ranges and months)What is the typical down payment?

Usually down payments range from 0-30% down when targeting investor buyers.At the end of the day, the point of seller financing is that sellers and buyers are able to form agreements that are generally not possible with traditional financing, so there's a lot of wiggle room to customize.