I'm curious as to the "financial institutions" you've talking to, were they banks?

@Chris Blackburn, while I can't speak to this specifically, there are a few red flags I see in your post.1: A Realtor has to be a member of the national association of realtors, an industry trade group primarily focused on your typical home buyer.  

Ask how they intend to pay for a year or two of rent.I ask for a statement of assets and discuss any red flags or ambiguities with them.

Are there any red flags or challenges specific to this neighborhood that I should keep in mind?

Big red flag.

Is this a red flag, or could it just mean there’s an untapped market here?

And, if they had issues in the far past, it can still be a red flag too.

I keep thinking about tools that can help me reduce risk by catching errors or red flags in seller disclosures and inspection docs, but that's likely because I've had a bad experiences with both.A simple and obvious example is a seller checking "No" for pests section, such as Scorpions and Snakes in Arizona when the property is in the desert, so obviously, there will be snakes and scorpions. 

It was in in one of those luxury towers. 

I then look at area vacancies, economic conditions, employment opportunities, area demographics and verify that the property has not been red tagged or have any other underlying problems that might make it difficult to resell or rent.When I have my financial information then I can consider debt service and costs related to equity partners in the overall income produced.