buyer is in solitary confinement and cannot close until they finish their sentence" 

In the immortal words of many judges passing sentence for receiving stolen goods; If there were no buyers, there'd be no stolen goods.

I'm confused...you use "re-sell fee" and "contract being assigned" in the same sentence...If you use transactional funding, you are buying the property outright and then reselling it.

@Vicki Gleitz You know nothing about this tenant, other then he claims to have grown for 12 years (who knows - maybe he's lying, or maybe he's not actually very knowledgeable having only dabbled on and off for 12 years).You've made an awful lot of assumptions based on one unverified spoken sentence.  

Please re-read that sentence if you don't understand.  

I'm also struggling to find a realtor that doesn't speak in 3 word sentences or even wants to meet in person to discuss my goals -- maybe it's just the area, heavy competition, and a lot of "investors" (probably like myself) who spin people's wheels without ever getting really serious.I'm also considering areas like Montclair and Bloomfield because of easy NYC access - they seem like they could be safer with longer term tenants, but I'm not as familiar with the rental markets.I'm reading and digesting as much as possible, getting familiar with terminology/concepts, but I'm struggling in general to get focused and be confident that I'm going about this the right way.  

Beating around the bush is a death sentence.

Based on the prior two sentences, I would be cautious about retail priced investing, which is what there is unless you know how to extract a property from an owner w/o market forces at work... meaning buying from a seller who is not ready, willing, or able to sell.

Your first sentence tells a LOT...... your numbers should tell you that you REALLY want this property....not your emotions.

On a 1/4 of a Million dollars, for an entire 1.000% rate difference, you're only looking at $149 mo. diff.250k @ 4.00% = $1,194250k @ 5.00% = $1,343                               $149The problem is, too many people look at loans these days as if it's a 30yr prison sentence, when the likelihood of most keeping a loan in place past 5 to 7ys, before they sell or refi, is pretty slim.This is why  the arm programs are making such a strong comeback!