From my research online, there haven’t been any recent violations.

You don’t need to chase motivated sellers—they will chase you if you position yourself as the solution they’re looking for.How to Do It Right:Build an online presence that makes it easy for motivated sellers to find you.

Price/Earning ratios make it not worth investing.

Most places have online property search tools that will give you the owner's name and mailing address for free.

Selling property for top dollar is not as simple as putting it online.

They should not have been this off and you should always use the worst-case scenario as your target number when you are doing a flip or BRRRR.If I were you and a sale wouldn't net enough, I would do mid-term rental there instead of long-term rental so you can earn more, but still not have a ton of tenancies.

Zillow and online county property records for sale prices.   

I am looking to create content online to document my journey, educate others, and market.

Join local meetups or online groups (here on BiggerPockets, Meetup.com, other other local REIA are the good ones).

I'd look at crime rates and I'd also look at multifamily supply projections to see how many units are expected to come online in the next few years.