I remember when Vacasa put out the same type of data and laughed when it showed one of my markets as a top 5 choice. 

It's definitely gotten really popular over the past few years and some people have built very successful businesses off of it, but if you aren't looking to do that full time then I would recommend buying a property instead as your margins will be far better and you have more options to get out of it if the market or your rentals go south.

This makes Augusta a pretty popular place to invest for out of state and even out of country investors.

To be honest, if you have a solid team in place in the market of your choice, thats half the battle.

@Katie Berry  give them a choice of a month of gym membership or the rent credit you suggested. 

We are trying to make a choice between using Datazap (3.5¢) per name, vs REISkip (24¢) per name.

If you’re looking for more rental income and can manage multiple units, another multi-family property could be a good choice.

Now I'm faced with a choice: Buy for 10k more than the appraised value and get good ROI but start my real estate journey underwater, potentially move into another REI property, go to another bank and hope for a better appraisal price or walk away. 

or you said my hypothesis is wrong, it has to be depreciate 27.5 years and no other choice. 

They were popular because they were cheap, since your walls were also your roof.