They are reporting builders intend to incorporate into their projects a for rent component to either sell to institutional investors (see my comment below) or manage themselves.I'll also add anecdotally, I'm of the opinion that many of the hedge funds who built portfolios of SFRs  during the not so great recession and still have them on their balance sheet today will seek ways to continue to participate in this asset class by creating ownership vehicles that they can either retain, participate, or manage instead of exiting.

I've taken Rockwell Institutes Real Estate Course at the beginning of 2015, and just recently turned an interest in RE Wholesale (Which is initially what brought me here to BiggerPockets). 

Easy way to look at things are any institutional, or Hedge funds buying in this asset class.

With all due respect to any who may disagree, as regards downpayments, contractors are not lending institutions; just like no one buys a car without a downpayment.

To make everything cleaner, you would want the financial institution to report the interest under your SSN or entity's EIN (TIN).

I would suggest that you have her call, or you can call for her, and see what tax break, if any, they would offer to her and how she could go about instituting that discount.

The water and fire damage, as someone already posted, would probably be caused by as many tenants as by acts of god if you instituted something like that. 

Most of the institutions I am aware of will only fund about 80% of the sales price on an investment property, so if you found a house you could buy for $100k you'd have to have $20k down plus your closing costs. 

I work in real estate, but am used to looking at larger, institutional industrial deals.

Can you elaborate more on the deal, who is the seller, individual or institution?