Renting to regular working families, retirees and young professionals makes more sense.

Family of 3-- 2 retirees, 1 disabled adult, combined family income of about 40thou annually.

With any change of the board they can start enforcing all kinds of strange rules that never applied before.Here in FL, you typically get some retiree that lives near the gate and has nothing better to due than be a pain the the butt for everyone else..

If you advertise that a tenant must make $2,700 gross, then you excluded a retiree on $2,200 a month who may have sufficient savings, or another retirement income that will pay out in 6 months or a young couple where dad will co-sign the lease! 

Hemet used to be all retirees, Moreno Valley too.  

Is there a way to arrange a private deal with the retiree and pay him back directly over time if he agrees?

His website is foreclosureforum.com or you can google him.There's a link to his dingbat retirement plan.He rents only 1 bedroom houses to section 8 retirees and they often live there 15 years.

So why such interest in trust deed investing, particularly by retirees?

This is the perfect profession for us pre-retirees.  

Even if there is increased rental demand in your market (more on that in Point 6), if you're in a high rent area, the data is showing that more and more millennials, young families, and young retirees are moving to the suburbs, for a lower cost of living, safer areas, better schools, and job growth.