We hit up Dirty Frank's (hotdog place), 16 bit (arcade bar), the Hollywood casino, Foodhall (bar/club), and then a nightcap at an underground place.

I don’t think this will help you out that much, but I think STRs would probably do better the closer they are to the casinos.  

Close to Casino maybe?

My fiancé and I both have good W2 jobs and live in big Stone gap Virginia, but the market there wouldn’t be as good as Bristol, in addition Bristol is just breaking ground on building a hard rock casino in the area, so we think this area it would be good for starting our real estate investment career.

I just sold a 4 acre parcel I owned next to the Graton Casino ..

Hopefully we can see a bit of cleanup once we get get problem people out of the units.Up by Ivory Theater and up Virginia and north of Loughborough is more of the sweet spot, but then you get gut rehabs that won't pencil out a return better than investing the same amount in VTSAX.I see properties being mothballed in the area closer you get to the casino on the city side.

@Carissa Holmes If you try investing 250k in Austin right now you'd be better off going to a casino and putting it all on black.

Take it to Vegas, the casinos will cash it for free. 

For any of you that followed last years threads on Vegas imploding on itself real estate wise because the Casino's had to close etc.Well a year later its on fire the market went the exact opposite ..

They did just open a large casino resort....