@Ruth Blue I enjoy the Airbnb Entrepreneur by Rachel Prince

Unfortunately, blues player Robert Cray sings it best with...The Forecast Calls For Pain... 

Target median blue House/Condo values mix with median blue % of houses built after 2005.

I'll be checking police reports in the area where they used to live (just learned to do so with the section 8 tenants) for disturbances and violet behavior in addition to the regular screening.I hope that helps in answering your question.Marina

Looks like a solid blue collar area.

The only way to make it a viable market is to break in at the wholesale market and develop your own direct from seller options that you can either wholesale or go forward with yourself.Houston does have cheap lots to build on though, that opportunity is there if a viable GUC program can be found for a new investor (These are like blue unicorns - spoken about but not seen).Dallas is worse than Houston. 

Then, those tenants either trash the place or stop paying (or both) and the landlord wishes he would have just waited.Additionally, with all the distressed inventory, those houses aren't appraising for what the turn-key sellers are selling them for, so they can't be resold to owner occupants or even effectively lease-optioned.That's just my perspective on this market -- I currently work in west Cobb, which is pretty comparable in socio-economic demographic to Stone Mountain and other blue-collar suburbs.Put it this way, I was planning to acquire 10-20 rentals this year...I've scrapped that plan based on the current market here in Atlanta...

A week later my window was smashed out the blue.

Providing a generic scope of work to a smart contractor will never save you money.Now, providing a generic scope of work to a bad contractor may save you money, at least until he realizes all the things that his bid didn't include and he walks off the job.Also, if you're not specific in your scope of work, what's to stop the contractor from using the ugly countertops that were on sale or the pink and blue cabinets that he purchased used off of Craigslist?

Harrisburg is similar to Trenton in that it relies upon the state bureacracy to provide stable long term jobs, government work is the city's economic lifeline.Transport hubs also provide a fair living for blue collar folk.