Landlord calls it quits?

A landlord who owns two houses on my street has recently put his houses up for sale. He originally bought the houses for $80K and $139K and is now listing them for $390K and $450K. I think that is a tad too much. Not only because it’ll make my assessment go up, but if anyone hasn’t heard there is a slow down in the RE market. Knock off about $50K from both of them to be somewhat ok.
Both places still have renters in them. There has been some gossip/rumor on the street that these are Section 8 houses. One house’s residents are pretty good, don’t make a lot of noise, not a lot of traffic going in or out, no people hanging in front, in essence they fit in. The other house, well they are much, much better now as opposed to when the residents first arrived.
So the $840,000 question is if the houses sell, will they remain rentals?
Let me throw in a pitch to encourage you to buy one of these houses (when the price gets lowered to something reasonable) so you can live on my block. One, we have a wonderful little block, where if you do stuff in your yard, you will totally make friends with your neighbors. If your interests include cycling, motorcycles, gardening, construction, or your toddler/baby, you will find friends. It’s not too hard to find a parking spot (but not super easy either). The lower priced house has some decent yard space, and a rear yard that, if you have no plans to grow anything back there, you could turn into a parking spot for a compact car.