You need to entice people to leave their homes and travel to your rental, and a non-vacation area won't do that as far as I can see.......

You also want to be on a highly traveled road in a visible location in a medium to high income area.Example 1: we invested heavily in a self storage facility with over 600 units in the tiny town of Beeville Texas.

For the basics: good, fast, or cheap - pick 2 out of 3 but you won't get all 3. 

The cost of foreclosure is not cheap, but compared against a botched one it is cheap.

But if you are looking for multi-family units on the cheap with a consistent rent-only mindset then it's a good area for that.

This house is not cheap in Compton.

But before you pull out your pitchforks and tell me about cheap cash flowing houses in the Midwest, let me explain.I have a VA loan that I want to put to work.

They will be rented to traveling nurses and other extended-stay short-term renters.

We are working through gutting, remodeling, and furnishing those for $1150/mo extended stay for traveling nurses and other pros.

Take on fixed debt while it's cheap and build as many income sources as you can.