Huntsville is a challenging market given the price points but I've had clients find good success in the suburbs. 

That's looking at it through a narrow lens though, when you zoom out to 5-10-15 years down the road and calculate the difference, in my experience the appreciation has been far more beneficial than the $200 difference per month in cash flow from a different market.

If have investment property, we are looking for relatively updated units (we are ok doing some work ourselves), class C+/B tenants, with rents either close to market rate or that can be increased.

You may also be able to "make your market" if you can hit a critical mass.

Are you in the Atlanta Market?

Welcome Joshua, I work the Atlanta market.  

They are going to have a pool, possibly hot tub, maybe a snack bar, and be beach front. at least comparing to the PCB market, most houses in comparable prices to condos dont have those things and are not beach front.

The cost of the program is 35K upfront and then approximately $3500/mo for all marketing.

For all methods you would want to find a market that has strong employment rates, strong income rates for the market, and is a growing or an established market. 

I am considering getting into this space (looking at some courses), but worried that its too late, and that deep local market knowledge/understanding of buyers/connection with developers etc is required to make this work, which only incumbent/long term investors will have and would be hard for a new entrant starting from scratch to catch-up...is my hypothesis valid in your opinion ?