Traffic was terribly thick in September though.

In this case the house is in a high demand suburb of Boston, MA where open houses are bringing in large buyer traffic with multiple offers.

Is a unit right next to the entrance of the strip mall more desirable than a similar unit nestled in the back but next to the anchor tenant that draws heavy foot traffic?

Excessive traffic to apartment.

They cite traffic and school overcrowding.

Btw that is maybe 90 mins with no traffic. 

We have a few flippers in the South Los Angeles area and as the elderly leave their homes and the local turnover increases, we're going to see more RE transactions and flips because these neighborhoods have homes that maintain a  lot of character, they're still relatively affordable compared to the rest of LA, and the commute to DTLA is also really short (it takes us 15-30 minutes to get to DTLA depending on the traffic).

One knucklehead drives too fast for conditions and hits another car and within minutes, traffic is backed up to Oklahoma. 

The moment a decent property hits the market it's gone in a flash.The realtors, all of which, obviously want to sell me the scraps and become impatient when I explain why they are not good deals.

Also, being a bit away from the highway also helps cut down on the traffic (volume / noise).I totally agree about the security.