There are many different roles that a person can take.  

I also want to write this off to lower our taxes etc. so that plays a major role in our decision as well. 

You will now have a huge monthly bill that you must pay.I'm not going to tell you how to think, but looking at mortgage loans and comparing how much you pay in interest is not a beneficial exercise IMO. 

Question: If I have the borrower's sign a deed-in-lieu before closing the loan, what would trigger my ability to exercise it?

My former partners can vouch for my track record in the business, everyone at the bank knows the role I played in rehabbing all of these (but no paper trail, they simply know because of our personal relationship), but on paper that's relevant to banks, I have almost nothing to my name.  

@Thomas S. thanks.If I read this right,there are not standard duties that realtors are expected to perform when listing a house for rent.There roles and duties will depend on the agreement made with such a realtor?

Get a sizeable option fee (make sure the option states it's non-refundable option fee or the like) that you can keep regardless of whether the option is exercised. 

Basically these are exercises for me at the moment as I begin to understand how the numbers work together and against each other.

Same rules, different enforcement based on how the city feels, and also depending on the department responsible, and the individuals running these departments play a huge role as well.

When an agent gets to where they are almost exclusively representing sellers, they usually also have assistants, transaction coordinators, and buyers agents as part of a team because they have learned that those roles aren't the best use of their time.