Some people are very easily fooled by a few fake testimonials, a fancy website or a professional looking business card.

She went from fear of losing her home to a stable financial situation with rental income.

Even if you self-manage that is a cost because it takes your time you could be doing other income producing activities.When I list properties for sellers I explain that most buyers do not self-manage which is true.So the buyers will include self-management when pricing.You never want to exclude management expenses.If you self-manage when buying GREAT but if you get in their and after trying decide you want to hire a manager then you have not accounted for that cost.It is one of the most single greatest mistakes I see investors make time and time again.You want it where if everything goes right you get an awesome deal but if things go wrong you can still have a good deal.VERSUSPeople talking themselves into good deals and when things go bad they now have a marginal to losing deal they can't get out of.You don't know what the seller will take.Be conservative and throw a low number out.You can always go up later.

In terms of cash, I would then only need cash for the down payment and cost of the loan, but this way the fix up costs are being financed over the long term instead of losing a big chunk of cash on the first property.

. - management scales very easily.

Filing fees are not much for a N/P, about the same as the LLCs, maybe less as the state encourages formation of N/Ps usually.Ask if the church has an attorney willing to participate in the formation, otherwise, you can find N/P filings and adapt them to your mission pretty easily as the C Corp. initial filing is not complicated and in fact has less considerations than an LLC, IMO.....so long as you keep in mind the unrelated party issues and three or more for the board.

I never bother to mention the animal getting lose and obviously they are reluctant to ask since they know pets are not allowed. 

Those funds can be spent away or they can then be used to buy decent notes at a discount, which is where the real bucks are, I hit 24, 30 and 40+ (actually a few times in the hundreds after refinancing them) returns easily on discounted notes.

It is SEO newbie friendly (a newbie can figure it out easily) and has many squeeze page templates.Best of luck!

So in the long run you don't lose the losses they just get deferred.