The area had re-zoned school districts and is close to Redstone Arsenal which is one of the largest employers in the Huntsville area.

You'll have no problem using an FHA loan for example in a rural area, but might have trouble in a red hot area like NE Minneapolis since sellers don't want to deal with the headache of inspections, regulations, etc when they can get asking price in 2d from a conventional buyer.

@Michael Noto I’m not talking about war zone areas I’m just talking about C class lower income rentals with a high % of section 8 or otherwise gov assisted tenants.

It means you actually screen them and look for red flags that would indicate they are problematic.

We're underwriting a 21 unit package in the highlighted red area in L/A aiming to apply the same approach.

If there were multiple offers on this house, you should be glad nothing major was found and move on.However, just an FYI - if there was not multiple offers on this property (minimum of 5) for a house in Madison proper with a price of $170k, that is a major red flag these days. 

Analytically I'll be following building permits by zone to get an idea of what's going on in our area but if anyone has any other method of analyzing what's really going on in different zip codes by statistics I'd love to hear/see them! 

I am looking at a parcel and I will need to meet with the zoning and planning boards of the local town to determine if the land can be subdivided into single family lots, multi family development, etc.

Land is zoned for multi family but property use is single family.

It is out of my comfort zone — I’ve never bought a house with wheels.