I am personally going to be looking in this range come January.** Current occupancy rates are sky high!

Both quotes were in the mid $60 range / month for SFH that is 100+ years old. 

The price range I am hoping for is a fixer upper at the $460k mark or less. 

. $80-120k is a wide range.

So your range would be covered but not their couch. 

In other counties they are bidding the interest rate down to the 2-3% range.

by virtue of inventory properties in the range you are looking make up about 2% of all MF structures built...you're looking for a needle in a haystack...You can buy an 8-unit in my city for $1.6m and a 16-unit for $600,000...what are some of the other criteria you are focused on...unit count really isn't that important

The reason is that there is a huge diversity of jobs by industry that is a huge advantage over any other areas of Texas and other parts of the country for that matter.

And as @Jaron Walling mentioned, if it was a rental or a flip would make a big difference, as well as the price range.

It appears to be a diverse economy attracting visitors for several different reasons.