I suggest you remember that maintaining a rental property is a business as well and your emotions should be separated is such transactions.

I think Goldman Sachs Investment claimed the summer is almost over, tight inventory and higher interest rates by downgrade both RDFIN and Z.With that being said, Zillow stocks maintained at $64, market cap is 11.9 billion dollars.

On the contrary, that same $1,000 rental would only be $128,520 in Buffalo (with still a fairly low unemployment rate of )Price-to-Rent Ratio for several cities: https://smartasset.com/mortgage/price-to-rent-rati...

it cost the seller a couple hundred dollars, and I had to go in front of the city council with the seller, but in this case it was a fairly simple process.

Even with seller financing I would not pay more than ARV minus repairsWhy do you believe you can get more rent than what fair market is?

Fairly new myself to the area but I have been connecting with some pretty great people here on BP. 

There’s your estimate.In most of my syndications the taxable income has been near zero in the first couple of years (we do cost seg so that juices it but even without cost seg the taxable income should be fairly low thanks to standard depreciation).  

Or would it be better to maintain the current low VA rates and hope for the best on new conventional financing?  

By deferring maintenance, an investor gets a property that has not been maintained and therefore residents leave quickly.  

The Absentee Homeowner with Equity is tried and true, but the Atlanta area is fairly active with investors, so you might be adding your mail on top of several others that the owner has received.You might consider Seniors with 20+ Year Ownership.