Rent to own is an excellent strategy but it's not for individuals in the situations your tenants are in.

As a military officer i can tell you that i'd be all over the service member in this situation. 

If you get a NO from one mortgage broker, keep asking different ones until you get a YES to your specific situation. 

William, You need to do the full math, as @Peter M. mentioned and did for you, the percent rules are just for quick analysis like he said. the percentage will analysis people usually use to help tell them if they want to run the numbers further on the property because it fits a certain % criteria. that's OK but does not fit every situation, what if you know the area is an up and coming hot spot and even if the % number is off - because the incoming rent is below market and you know that they will be going up - then the percentage rule will tell you to walk away and you would miss out on a property that a full analysis from the beginning would tell you to jump on that property because you would know that the rents were below market and that they are going up. forget the percent rules, learn the area you want to invest in, you will learn what the area does, the rent it gets and how much would be a good amount to purchase for based on the amount of rent you can collect for that property.

Offer needs to be submitted to Chase short sale department along with all of the seller’s financial/hardship documents, Chase will order appraisal or BPO to confirm that your offer is realistic, Chase will review seller’s situation to see if they qualify for any sort of assistance.

FAR contracts directly address this situation.

@Bill DrutzJust curious, have you taken the first actionable steps to get your family out of that situation? 

I’m new to the BiggerPockets world and I’m sure this question may have been asked previously but each situation is different and looking for some guidance.

I'm not saying it's impossible, we just had a similar situation with a client and we were able to get him under contract, your agent will definitely need to know how to maneuver this issue and find ways to make your offer more enticing, whether is by waving contingencies, offer a higher down payment, etc, not saying these are the best ideas, but just some ideas to ponder. 

I realize this has been posted in multiple iterations before but hey, everyone's situation is unique!