You will lose the capital gains exclusion by doing that.

The last thing tenants want to do is lose their section 8 support, it takes years to be approved for it.

It would be terrible to lose the home you worked so hard for over a mistake. 

Even if you break even, you will lose money every month it sits vacant, when you need repairs, property management, etc.

So instead of losing a 30k assignment fee they would partner with someone to keep it alive.

Have you ever heard of a Landlord being sued by a Tenant and losing property?

if you buy a random property on Zillow and turn it over to people you have never met, you will very likely lose money, get frustrated, and set yourself back.if you're serious i'd pick a market and plan on making several trips there. 

We decided to rent, this way if the sale fell through we would only lose our time packing (we needed to purge anyway), the cost of a POD and one month's rent.

We'll lose money for 75-90 days but the new rent is market so some will stay and not forcing people that can't afford it to move in the middle of a very cold winter I think buys a tiny bit of good will and is the decent thing to do.

You may recoup the money, but there's also a good chance you'll lose some.