I'm just not sure of my options and wanted to hear some feedback given its somewhat of a unique situation. 

I’m running into a unique situation with a prospective tenant:They want to rent a unit, but do not have all the upfront costs (broker fee, security, 1st month rent) to sign a lease agreement.

A lot of these factors, including mental illness, is not unique to the state.

You can get leases and docs on BP but consider obtaining from a NC written attorney since every states statutes are unique. 

If you want to really be secure, use a password manager like lastpass, keypass, sticky password, or logmeonce to maintain unique passwords for each website you use.

All of the material I come across is about buying, selling, flipping, or etc and I can't really find anything for my unique circumstance.

We haven't tried reaching out for a mentor yet, but we have been offered many get rich quick real estate guru education programs for 30k buyins and promises of mastermind groups-- We all have unique experience professionally and personally, so i believe the different perspectives and character traits we carry could be a boon to someone without them.

Kind of a unique situation that I need experienced ensight on...

There's probably a reason they didn't take a picture, and this process will help you ask questions to the seller about specific areas of the house that other buyers won't even know to ask about.You'll want to choose the first room by finding a unique window that you can identify in both the interior and exterior photo.

The truth is that they both have their unique benefits.