Looking at a couple of potential deals but am totally skeptical

[Garrett Pearson]

Hello. I will admit that I am as green as they come. I've never even been close enough to a deal to smell one let alone be apart of one. I am looking at two potential deals that are not posted on the MLS. I apologize for such a long post. They appear somewhat promising from what I can see but I need some help. They both are SFR which I would be interested in buying and holding. One house is 4br/2.5 ba priced at $79k and it appears to be in immaculate shape. If it was closer, I might would move in myself. The other house in 3bd/1ba priced $39.9K which according to the listing needs some TLC. Here are the down sides. The properties are located a couple of hours away in a smaller town in IL. I say smaller but their population is over 110k. The town does have about 6 colleges which brings me to the things are most concerning. The houses are in a part of town where the home prices seem pretty low. I only take Zillow with a grain of salt but according to Zillow, the prices in that zip code are 54% below the median home prices and that the number of foreclosure will most likely drive the prices down in the upcoming year. I checked the schools in the area ratings they are 1 out of a possible 10. This raises a major red flag but the saving grace is that it is very close to a university that has about 5700 students that is only able to house 2140. I was unable to find out how many students commute from outside the area. This could be a great opportunity to rent to college students. There are similar houses renting in the area on craigslist. The rents in the area for 3-4 bedrooms homes are $800-1200. I should have room to offer rent slightly less. These deals sounds risky to me but I need to make sure that it's that I have cold feet. Do you think it wise to purchase a property(ies) in a place where my only real potential tenants will be college students and especially such a small body of students? Thank you for taking time to read and/or reply.