The rules and paperwork would be exactly the same as any other private/hard money loan except, I suppose, there is no demand letter required of you, the lender.

There should be higher demand?

The primary, if not only, reason there has been a brief spike in subsidized demand for housing in recent months (2012), has been the GSE/FHFA endorsed REO-To-Rental plan, and associated securitization conduits, in which large asset managers have been encouraged to take advantage of government funded, risk-free financing (and entirely bypassing banks who have given up on loan origination due to legacy liability issues which have every bank tied up in litigation from now until Feddom come - just see today's Bank of America results) and purchase foreclosed properties in bulk, with the intention of converting them into rental properties.http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-17/och-ziff-calls-top-reo-rental-exit-landlord-businessIt is no secret that in addition to the well-known phenomenon of "foreclosure stuffing", one of the primary drivers of the artificial housing "recovery" has been the surge of hedge funds and asset managers into purchases of rental units courtesy of near-zero cost REO-to-rent federal lending facilities, which have taken out distressed inventory from the market in hopes of converting it into rental.

Now there are not enough houses for the lower to middle markets and builders can't build cheap enough to meet that demand.

Start by understanding the people to understand the market and the demands as well as the socio-economic group of your market.Non-owner occupied conventional loans will be at 75-70% LTV.

It seems that most landlords around the colleges charge per room and can demand more rather than by entire apartment.

If a broker or agent is desperate and has no clients I suppose they would try maybe anything no matter how far fetched it is.

That's about as much as I know about those submarkets.But in my area (Kailua), demand remained high and the prices flatlined (or dropped maybe 5%).

Not trying to be negative on it, but you would have to figure out the pricing dynamics and the value added, demand, breakeven, etc..

Who knows what will happen with the economy, Interest rates, inventory, demand, new construction etc.