I thought it was a very common practice. I know daycare owners who complained about high lease prices for the house/building. What they usually do is take a mortgage, buy a building and don't pay the lease just the mortgage. It's cheaper this way and you end up owning the building after finishing paying the mortgage.
That’s taking advantage of price differences between residential and commercial property. Many locales do not allow leasing out a house as a business location but they do allow running a business out of your home.
