Also, yes it is a tenant friendly area but that is also a bit overblown since evictions are very low here in san Diego, last I checked it was less than 1 out of 100 and in areas around the country where evictions can happen practically overnight, some of those areas can have extremely high eviction rates especially a lot of those areas with high poverty rates.

. # things to look at when applying for a mortgage are credit, assets and income.

The economy looks to be slowly diversifying away from Oil and unemployment is low in OK.

Being self-employed can make securing commercial loans more complex as lenders typically prefer borrowers with stable income and strong credit history.

Personally, I love the Atlanta area for investing, I have a ton of clients who invest in Atlanta and in Baltimore and those areas seem to have a decent return on investment for flips even with having low down payments on the purchases. 

For screening, you'll want to check things like credit history and rental history.

I love the idea of renting out vans to other people so they can experience the highs and the lows, too.

Accordingly, you should gather data to support offers other than list price and when you make the offer, if it's low, politely explain your reasoning.

There's still a lot of saturation there that I don't think has worked through the system; inventory is still relatively low especially in my price slot ($400-550k) so I think a lot of those people who bought in the last 3-4 years are either in the same boat as me - don't need it to make money - or they are hoping to hold on until things turn around.

Low property taxes, and landlord-friendly.