When you get ready to dive in buy 1st non performing notes and forget about 2nds you can lose all your money when the 1st foreclose.Joe Gore

If buyer walks away does he lose his earnest money?

my immediate goal starting out is to not lose money. my near term/intermediate (six-nine months) goal is to build relationships with small/regional banks and help them with their NPN (my question back to BP Nation: is that realistic or pie in the sky???)

That way at least the property manager doesn't lose any money.

It's hard to "lose" a house that is owned free and clear.Where are you in you life and your investing goals?

And, $1,500/mo rent doesn't even seem like it would cover the mortgage payment on a $300,000 mortgage, which would leave you losing money each month, even without reserves or expenses.Given that your max rent is $1500/mo, I don't see this working even if you could negotiate a significant reduction via a short sale.

Specific to a cash applicant, they would likely lose out on earning points for having a bank account.  

This makes us take on higher risk.When the tenant doesn't pay, we hate the idea of losing rent so we let them stay and hope they pay as promised.When the cheap contractor doesn't finish the job or doesn't do it right, we hate to lose what we've already invested in the project and hate having to pay even more to do it right.When I knew the house would be a loser, I doubled down like a gambler when I should have walked.Don't let loss aversion make you risk tolerant!  

Be assured, a savvy business person simply will not engage with an "invisible" operator, especially in the mainstream and you'll end up doing business with people with nothing to lose.

We don't want to lose our property to some neurotoxin they use to kill ants or Gophers..