In Vermont-- ski areas like Ludlow, Stowe, and Waterbury, Maine--Bar Harbor,  New Hampshire--North Conway, and in Tennessee--Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Nashville (beware of the STR restrictions in Nashville). 

During the spring and summer, the Kern River and Lake Isabella are busy with water recreation, fishing, and hiking and in the fall and winter it slows down but they do have winter recreation in the form of skiing at Shirley Meadows so it won't be dead in the winter.

Is that a right understanding and if so, why would anyone buy a pre-REO property?

This could be the opportunity for some creative credit card hacking if you can get a 0% APR 12-month option, pull cash out of it to pay for the work, and then refinance to pay it off.

but am leaning towards maxing out a traditional credit card or cards via 0% intro APRs and/or Balance transfers.

Once I achieve my 1st financial goal I plan to add the buy and hold strategy to my business model, and from that point forward the sky's the limit.

Buying a pre-foreclosed property is all about 2 things, one is TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE and two YOU NEED EVERYTHING IN PLACE TO GET THE DEAL DONE.

Hard to have good credit when you apply for new cards to pay for rehabs (0% APR for a year, free money for a year), new mortgages, hard inquiries etc 

For my first property, I pulled a 0 APR credit card to pay for all of the expenses of the rehab... $40,000 worth of expenses.

Ask them what you have to do to get a pre-approval.