To be taken seriously on here, you'll need real data.

I am a data guru, currently working in Corporate Finance, fun stuff. 

@Dave Meyer brings the Data Deli to us while @Kathy Fettke knows the market cycle.

A quicker way to determine how to create the sales funnel is to hire a free lance marketer, specializing in lead generation for real estate agents, allow him access to your data, and have him produce the sales funnel process for you.  

I'm trying to find data sources to get information on local rent values per bedroom/square foot, number of rental properties currently available, population demographics showing how many people in a given area rent vs. buy, etc.

Are you stacking those prospects against any other data points (high equity, vacant, non owner occupied, etc)? 

Forget BRRR right now rates too high but if you rehab and create the equity can definitely BRRR that property in the future when either rates have fallen or inflation has driven up rents to create a safe margin.

Also, Dave Myer posted a helpful article on this topic showing all the data and that pretty much sealed the deal for me.

It would depend on the market and the data available as to which approach would be the most reliable. 

Make sure of all data like are all the rents being paid.