Section 8 is has the benefit of guaranteed payments by the government.

While likely more expensive than Cleveland or Toledo, Columbus has a more diverse and robust economy, driven by government, education (Ohio State University), and healthcare.

Dumb Debt also means that the owner takes on recourse debt and personally guarantees it instead of non-recourse debt or other people’s debt (OPD) or cross collateralizes it with highly appreciated assets with low debt to value ratios.

When you think about it, only the flipper will know the expenses (not generally public record) so analysts or data aggregators can only go off publically available data.

Often times this data isn't made public so some calls have to be made, but for us it's an indication whether or not there's a trend of investments being made in an area. 

Note that active income isn't the same thing as non-passive income, it's lower bar that just requires that it's a business activity that isn't just entirely passive. 

So, using the PA court systems public website has been more accurate than any service for these local applicants.

Looking ahead, once you secure a tenant, perhaps this is something that should be explored to make the next lease up easier.Also, @Caria Mitchell raised an interesting point in saying: We are experiencing a shortage of qualified applicants, I’ve noticed non-conventional applicants vs qualified applicants that don’t have a voucher or some form of subsidy. 

Every $1 I make in cash flow, the government will take 35¢-40¢ today.

With a multi-family property, it is very unlikely that all of your units become vacant or non-paying at the same time.