And of course, will gladly drive somewhere for a couple days, park myself somewhere and work-remotely as needed. 

.: Quote from @Suman Nandi: ....leveraged RE appreciation historically has whooped unleveraged stock growth.....I just wanted to correct this here because "leveraged stock" which is a margin account, and trading on margin, I have seen interest rates of 12%/14%+.       

Of course they are going to have bad credit or they would be looking in a better area.Another thing you may want to consider to drive more applications is to not charge the application fee.

For example, here in Columbus we've got Intel building their mega-fab which is already driving up property values and rents in certain submarkets.

That's the drunk driver saying the car just wouldn't drive straight. 

I also build a drive for dollars list that I slowly add addresses to every month.

Amenities also drive demand to a rental and its much easier to have something like a pool if you are in a complex.

It seems like you just really wanted this property so you let your emotions drive your offer.

Having watched many prior co-workers get paid, cash their check at the casino, and promptly deposit it all into a slot machine I can tell you with pretty good certainty that casinos don't have a positive effect on disposable income and good use of the existing income in the area surrounding :)Are there solid local employers OTHER than the casino in a 15-minute drive? 

Just depends on your strategy but my best advice is to take a drive through those areas.