House Hunting

I just got a house in Indianola. I'm so excited! I can't believe how difficult it was to find a place to live. I don't know if this is the same experience for every teacher moving to the Delta, but DANG! There was NOTHING!!! I'm teaching in Greenwood with 3 other teachers, and we went down there, at least 3 times, solely for the purpose of finding a place to live. We contacted realtors, renters, called numbers on signs, talked to Post Offices, Policemen, the Banks, EVERYTHING! We did it all. And, nothing! The places we saw were horrendous! And, the half-way decent place were $600 for two-rooms. Icky.
Why are there no houses? No one wants to rent in the Delta. Greenwood is one of the largest towns in the delta - larger than Oxford - and nobody wants to rent. Everybody is selling and movin' out. There must be some sort of great scheme that someone could take advantage of by buying up these houses and renting them out. However, I guess you'd have to assume that enough people are gonna be moving in and looking for rentals. Well, maybe if we keep shipping teachers out there. Wink-Wink.
Fortunately, there is an MTC alum living in Indianola who is running a somewhat similar scheme. He has bought a good deal of beautiful, old, Mississippi homes, and is renting them out at very reasonable prices. He has a fabulous eye for real-estate, and the house that I ended up renting from him, although it is a fixer-upper, he has so many great ideas for improving it. It's gonna be extrawesome!
Well, I hope that everybody else in the program has not had as frustrating a search for housing as I have. Don't get me wrong, it could always be worse. Anyhoo, good luck to the rest of you.