No deals yet, mostly depressing phone calls from people telling me to stay away from their parent's house =(

Don't be lured by the very low priced properties with "super hero" sized returns, those are in very depressed neighborhoods where collecting rents and renters taking care of your property is a crap shoot.

Therefore, properties often stagnate and do not get updated.In other words, turnover is depressed because residents choose to take advantage of keeping their artificially reduced rental rates.

Right now all areas are seeing increased inventory and time on market, and some markets are seeing substantially depressed prices (1m+, anything energy corridor for sure). 

You should strive to find out why they are depressed.

A lot of that is personal preference, but I have to say that the math works out better well when you leverage rentals, especially when you can borrow money at 4% for 30 years and prices are depressed.

In a market where rents are depressed, the RC will often be significantly higher than the ACV.

I was thinking a great return for STR, but so risky with the old homes, and the depression on the area. 

These markets are still dominated by depression. 

Part of the success of the TN venture is they chose a town/county that was economically depressed, therefore eager to help attract new people to their area.