So keep in mind that perspective and timing have a lot to do with you perception of a market.  

You will see they are investing in the strongest markets, have great broker networks / access to deals which is critical in a highly competitive market, can raise significant capital to take advantage of scale, more disciplined / conservative underwriting models, have simple well thought out business plans to increase the properties value, using fixed rate 10yr loans to take advantage of still incredibly low rates historically speaking and use more sophisticated tool sets to help understand how fluctuations in occupancy, rents, etc may impact their models.  

They did ok but IMO were not sophisticated investors either.

You will have to walk through your own detailed analysis and get back up documentation (e.g. contracts, bills) to confirm everything possible.A larger scale owner probably used more 'sophisticated' systems.

My concern is trying to break out of the local perception of the adjacent town and trying to pull b class tenants in a c class area again only due to the reputation of the town as a whole.

you may be running into the negative perception of wholesalers who tie up property with no means to actually close. and if they cant assign the contract they walk . 

If you have plenty of activity but no requests to rent, the cost is too high in perception to what the tenant is getting or giving up.

You have to be sophisticated and truly understand the investment you are getting into.

It is a sophisticated and powerful retirement plan that puts you directly in control of your retirement savings, and directly responsible for adhering to IRS rules.  

Section 8 Bloghttps://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/9232/55313-intro-to-section-8---your-perceptions-vs-my-realities