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).  

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.

Unlike LLCs, in which you can generally distribute property without tax implications, Property distributed via S-corp is treated as if sold to a shareholder for its fair market value. 

Even experienced syndicators look to loan guarantors to ensure that their operations are running smoothly. 

The area, though, has fairly strong rental demand. 

Whenever you are buying a property out of state you should do a few things to ensure it's as smooth as possible.

Also, Baton Rouge is a fairly integrated market, where there are a lot of old developments in Tigerland that are actually closer to campus than new student housing development.