Househacking is the ultimate way to change your financial situation, especially in a market like Worcester or a surrounding city.

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Ultimately it depends on your goals.1.

After 2 months of interviews and rejections, I ultimately made the decision that you gotta burn the boats! 

Here's a guide our team wrote that might prove useful on how to screen tenants and the reports you have access to as a landlord: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO TENANT SCREENING FOR LANDLORDS

For them, rural is the risk if it's going to grow or not, ultimately if they have to absorb the property, are they [the lender] going to lose money on their exit strategy. 

Ultimately, you need to figure out your end goal.

I am interested in approaching this from the standpoint of a newbie who is trying to use real estate both to diversify with something a bit more stable from my day job (we own retail stores) and ultimately find more balance in life.  

Start with BiggerPockets Ultimate Beginners Guide (free).

Ultimately, the keys aren't THAT important since, as @Russell Brazil correctly pointed out, you really should have the locks rekeyed anyway.