Start talking about how your company is number 1, and you company is this and that and you'll lose 'em.

We don't want to leverage--or take the chance of losing--any of our holdings. 

If your marketing is great and there are solid leads in there, you will make 1000x whatever you pay someone compared to what you lose by missing the call.  

If the deal doesn't work then better to lose your EMD than owning an upside down property

I think you might make some modest returns in the long run if you buy turnkey carefully and STAY invested (don't sell - you will take loses) but it will be smaller return if you did not acquire through a profitable turnkey provider unless you make expensive mistakes and then quit do-it-yourself investing.  

The second floor has big faulted ceilings made of plaster that have interesting shapes in 2 of the bedrooms and I would hate to lose that look by having to box in the duct work.

They might be in danger of losing the property to foreclosure.

So if I am connecting the dots, if I were to use a licensed mortgage loan officer and a title attorney to create the note and all the associated paperwork, and we qualified our buyer very carefully, I should be able to sell the note sooner rather than later, and not have to take such a deeply discounted price that I lose all the profit that was in the deal? 

One of the rooms they painted had 14 screws in the wall--very excessive.

Brandon Johnson If Foremost won't take it you will likely need to go to the Excess and Surplus lines market; which has companies that will insure high risk.