it cost the seller a couple hundred dollars, and I had to go in front of the city council with the seller, but in this case it was a fairly simple process.

Even with seller financing I would not pay more than ARV minus repairsWhy do you believe you can get more rent than what fair market is?

Fairly new myself to the area but I have been connecting with some pretty great people here on BP. 

There’s your estimate.In most of my syndications the taxable income has been near zero in the first couple of years (we do cost seg so that juices it but even without cost seg the taxable income should be fairly low thanks to standard depreciation).  

The Absentee Homeowner with Equity is tried and true, but the Atlanta area is fairly active with investors, so you might be adding your mail on top of several others that the owner has received.You might consider Seniors with 20+ Year Ownership.

It's a cash flow play with the exit strategy built in. 

What arena are you looking to play ball in? 

Unlike LLCs, in which you can generally distribute property without tax implications, Property distributed via S-corp is treated as if sold to a shareholder for its fair market value. 

Whatever your answer is, it will get you thinking on if and how to proceed into the commercial real estate world.All that being said, my general answer is YES, it is a good strategy.First step should be to start educating yourself about commercial real estate, how its valuation is based on profitability and not strictly on comps, how to leverage the power of partnerships to get large deals done through syndication, how job and population growth start playing a big role when evaluating markets to invest in, etc. 

The area, though, has fairly strong rental demand.