Landlords, Rents and New Property

Yesterday morning I worked on our real estate business (am I really retired?) by checking references on a new tenant for a house we have owned for a number of years.  The weirdest thing happened.  I called the reference (the current landlord) of the woman we were considering offering the house to.  I struck up a long conversation with her after she revealed that she was going through a divorce (it is amazing what people will tell you over the phone, people you don't know) and it turns out that the woman who applied to rent our house, I will call her Jenny, did so because the house she was living in was going up for sale.  And after talking with this landlord, a really friendly woman maybe in her 40s who said her husband is having a mid-life crisis (affair?) which is why they are selling the house (liquidating everything is what she told me) Jenny is currently living in, it looks like WE might want to buy that very house..  We are about to sell a house and we could do something called a like-kind exchange (because we are selling one property you can put that money into right back into another similar property and avoid taxes).  And, we could further avoid expenses (well the seller could) by not using a real estate broker.  So, as odd as life can be, there is the possibility that we could buy the house Jenny is now living in so she could stay put.   I immediately texted the two other great potential renters that they might want to hold on, the house we thought we had rented to Jenny may be again available!  Be ready for the unexpected door (or doors!) to open I am learning :)