Possible Church Rectory purchase. What needs to be considered?

[Gabe Viteri]

I live across the street from a private, Catholic school and church. In addition to the church and school buildings, one of the SFR's on my side of the street is used as the church Rectory (where the priest lives). This property is considered part of the church and is zoned as such. These buildings were all built in the early 50's and are about 1300 sq ft 1 story homes with basement of equivalent size, attached garage. For all intents and purposes, the Rectory looks and funtuons similar to our row of houses. My other neighbor (let's call him Eddie) and I were informed by the priest last weekend that the Rectory will need to be sold soon because of a lack of financing coming in from the school. Eddie and I have discussed and agreed to partnering up to BRRRR the place if we can. I am unsure of the possible complications that may arise from the legal conversion process from Rectory to SFR (or even ideally MFR!) . My assumption is that we will have to petition for a change in zoning, but I wanted to see if anyone could offer some advice as to what potential hurdles may lie ahead for us in this somewhat unique situation. Thanks BP