There's one additional reason to take a position that your rental operation is "trade or business": your ability to deduct business overhead expenses such as marketing, education, etc.

@Victor Kyi - In my opinion the reduction of risk investment wise comes in the quality of the asset (which in new construction means it will be in a good shape for a little while) and second in your ability to predict the cash flow based on what it would currently go for.

Do these things really not affect the ability to find a good tenant?

Lets look at the top three benefits to the owner using owner financing: Ability to defer taxes from the sell of the property. 

We reduced our timeframe to get back 100% to 30 days out and offered anyone within the 30 day time frame either 50% back or the ability to reschedule for a year from the original date.

As 2020 showed us, we should not overestimate our forecasting abilities. 

The benefits include contributions nearly 10X of an IRA, exempt from UBIT on leveraged real estate, ability to access your retirement dollars personally if needed via loan feature, tax-free investing using Roth sub-account and more. 

@Arta Montero Demand and the ability to predict demand should be valued.

Do I have the ability to choose which property is counted as the second home?

I'm curious.The ability to cold call is the single most important and profitable skill you'll ever learn and the only skill you need to build your real estate (or any other) business.