That being said...there aren't going to be rent decreases in Highland Town, Cherry, or Congress Park or in up and coming neighborhoods like Berkeley.

The best deals are the ones you find/create yourself, but that means you have to put the time and work in to find/create them.Start with the neighborhoods around your house - do "driving for dollars" looking for vacant or derelict properties and send a letter or postcard to the owners offering to buy (to find the owners use RIPropInfo.com and the Assessor link for the town, then look the property up).

Those that support the following goal: "Strategically concentrating on specific NC neighborhoods, purchasing homes, rehabbing to "responsibly Rent", revitalizing those neighborhoods and later selling the homes for a profit.

I deal with buy, rehab and sell owner occupant properties and there is nothing worse than seeing a neighborhood going down the tubes because of rentals. 

Good neighborhoods.

I would contend that where location ranks on the "importance" scale depends largely on your specific goals.

I thought this would set a good tone for the property and catch eyes of people who may be driving through the neighborhood.

Contrary to the opinion of some, in most jurisdictions you can collect a number of applications at the same time and then rank them according to your previously established rental criteria.

I have a contract to purchase a residential foreclosure in a affluent neighborhood for $160,000 but property current as-is value before doing any rehab work is more like $280,000-320,000.      

Flipping requires being a little choosier about neighborhoods.