Looking outside the city proper (Las Colinas, The Colony, Frisco, etc…up around where Universal is going in).

The property is close to a university, so the rent is quite high: $8300 between both rentals.  

It is true that certain policies will accumulate significant cash value, but you either have to put in several thousands for a certain amount of years and let it season for a bit (Life Insurance Retirement Plan) or you pay your monthly/annual premium for quite a while and wait until you're in your 60's or 70's+ to have access to a good amount of cash value (Variable Universal Life).

The land is blocks away from Rockhurst University, UMKC, and the Plaza.

Russell County has a population of 57,961 and Lee County (which also has Auburn University) has a population of 164,542.

Second largest metro area in Alabama with a population of over 500,000 when including Baldwin County, of which over 40,000 individuals commute from for work.3. 7.5 miles from downtown is The University of South Alabama which employs more than five thousand people, and has over 15,000 students.

It seems like a great opportunity, but as someone based in DC, I don’t know much about Salisbury.I see that it's fairly close to a hospital, which could be good for medium-term rentals (MTR), and it's also near a university, which might attract long-term renters.For those with experience in this market, I’d appreciate your thoughts!

One final quibble is that they don't have the wonderful universal search feature of quickbooks, where I could just start typing and quickly find matching transactions.

I agree with this high level (Private Money = Individual, Hard Money = Company Non-Turnkey Product).I've been begging (mostly to no avail) for better clarity and definitions here for these to avoid confusion - BiggerPockets IMO has a HUGE opportunity to set and create the "gold standard" universal definitions of loan types with just a little initiative. 

Also, if you're renting by the room, it’s a great idea to try and be near a school or university for demand.