They may have played a role in your credit card denial.  

We're doing buy & hold for the cash flow so that I can leave my day job and play monopoly full-time. 

It's a longer term hold play, so not much income to speak of this soon.

And we are flirting with exactly that, we see it playing out in actions.

We had one in Mass. recently where they overvalued the property which was in awful condition and compared it to homes in a cul de sac that were updated.

It's your agent's job to play nice with others while also keeping your best interest top of mind.

This way the investor has a quality property where all the payment is going to the mortgage so equity builds up fast and they can take the re-advanced funds and WAIT for the right opportunity for extra yield plays. 

If its college students/young professionals @Nathan Gesner gave some solid idea.If there are a lot of tenants with young kids, maybe a safe play areaAll depends who lives there

There are trade off marketing channels such as cold calling and mass SMS. 

and how will the $500k exemption play into it?