My latest theory is that anyone in that area who's responsible and earning a living can afford to buy their own place there, so what's left is a renter pool of marginal folks.

The association has an inground pool and a day pier for everyone to use.

Sure doesn't seem like it to me.I think you are creating tremendous risk for your sellers, who would be far better off facing foreclosure now, where they at least recover some of their equity, then risking an unknown buyer mismanaging their asset as part of a huge pool, creating the very real risk that they may still have to face foreclosure in the future, at or below the current asset value, and after they thought they had moved on from the deal.And, to answer your question about what should the little guy do... though, as we've already established, you are attempting to get 100 of these deals... it seems like you have the means to purchase three deals in a matter of months.

thanks @Henry Lazerow - that's insane - how are the pool of candidates?

The biggest thing that sticks out to me is, if the property is in good enough shape to qualify for a conventional mortgage, there is a larger pool of potential buyer, so there may not need to be enough spread between purchase and ARV.

I would also encourage you to source leads through a software like TurboTenant which will streamline the process, in conjunction with the handouts found in Brandon's book, and likely provide a better applicant pool as your listing is automatically published to multiple rental listing sites.

Where else can you get a home with a pool a block from the beach under $500k?

I like the idea of owning a house and having a larger pool of buyers that will value that asset differently in the future. 

I know many of the Columbus Cartel kids look up to me as a father figure, so my fatherly advice is to jump in the Classified pool ya'll.

Allowing pets will double the available pool of renters.2.