On my existing units most prefer to pay cash.

Either way...costs have SKYROCKETED in the building material space...people who are building at such a low fee are likely their own GC and not paying themselves properly@Alex L. - What prompted the purchase of the lot? 

I told her I cannot afford that, which I assumed correctly that the so-called free blueprint is useless without paying $2,000 for the training program.

That way you can ask for 4-5% Seller credits to pay for the closing costs.

The Seller is interested in leaving up to $0.5m as a preferred equity/debt as long as she doesn't have to pay tax immediately on the $0.5m that she doesn't receive on closing. 

Most of the units I owned have room partners so they pay rent by their own individual bank ACH.

Welcome to BP William, for your reference this is your profile link - https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/williamb976See you around the site!!!

I currently am franchising stores for a few years now and am seeing the leases we sign and square footage we pay for. 

where and how much did you pay ? 

The main tenant has also now stopped paying rent so it's all getting more and more messy.