Faced with a smaller congregation, the Second Church of Christ, Scientist, in Sacramento, Calif., is up for sale.

Church members hired a real estate broker in December and priced their two buildings on 15,000 square feet at $1.4 million. Two months later, Leigh Nurre faces one of the toughest transactions in real estate: selling a property designed for one purpose and of interest to only a sliver of the market.

Nurre is among hundreds of U.S. real estate agents and brokers marketing older churches as traditional mainline congregations decline, people move to the suburbs and churches increasingly become all-week lifestyle centers that need more room. Nurre and others make telephone calls to new, renting congregations that may or may not have money to buy. They advertise on commercial real estate sites under "special purpose" designations. And they get exploratory calls from developers and others floating ideas for other uses, from funeral homes to private schools.

Nothing about the process is easy. Most older churches are designed solely for services and can require rezoning for alternate uses. Residential areas accustomed to a low-impact religious neighbor can be fussy about busier uses. Seller congregations can even balk at buyer proposals they find offensive. Churches also are expensive and fledgling congregations often lack the necessary large down payments on sites often listed for more than $1 million.

No one knows for certain how many of the nation's estimated 270,000 religious congregations are buying or selling at any given time. But as churches need to downsize or expand, "there's always another congregation looking to grow and that property is perfect for them," says Simeon May, chief executive officer of the National Association of Church Business Administration in Texas. "One church moves on and the other moves in."

Most churches still sell their properties to other churches, May says, a phenomenon that has made church lending a specialty for financial institutions. That's the kind of buyer Nurre has most in mind for the Second Church of Christ, Scientist.

"The highest and best use here is a church," Nurre says. "That's what I'm trying to attract."

She shows a stately 212-seat sanctuary that was picked up and moved from Beale Air Force Base to Sacramento 58 years ago. A second building contains a traditional Christian Scientist reading room, a warren of offices and a large bright room for Sunday school.

Churches pay the same lending rates as commercial businesses - currently about 7.75 percent for loans usually paid off in under a decade, says Mary Ann Kalbach, who oversees church loans at American River Bank in Sacramento.

Typically, banks like to see no more than 25 percent of a church's income spent on a loan, she says. Kalbach says it takes about 200 regularly contributing church members to finance a $1.5 million purchase.

If a church can't find a religious buyer, there are numerous alternatives. May of the National Association of Church Business Administration says older churches throughout the United States and Europe, where church attendance has been declining, have been turned into offices, restaurants and medical centers.

In Sacramento, Nurre says she has received 60 calls so far for the Christian Scientist church - most from other congregations in the city and one considering a move from Los Angeles.

She says history suggests another church as a likely outcome.

"We've had calls from Hindu, Buddhist, New Harvest, Church of the Nazarene and a variety of evangelical churches," Nurre says. She's also heard from developers and people eyeing the site for a theater, a private school, mortuary and day care center.

All these options present problems. Nurre says several of the interested congregations are too small to afford the asking price. Others that can afford it say 212 sanctuary seats is too small. The church also depends solely on street parking and is zoned for residential uses.

Sacramento city planners say a new church is the easiest option for the neighborhood. Other uses have potential to trigger rezoning, special permits or issues over a well-known older building that could bring public hearings and political complications.

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Jim Wasserman writes for the Sacramento Bee.