First, make sure the population is not declining.  

Several other banks declined to quote for the same reason. 

I believe the behavior will continue to decline.  

If you buy in a declining market, or you buy at an unrealistic rental rate (tenants paying an unrealistic rate), you might not be able to sustain what was advertised. 2.)

The University experienced a lot of growth from 2009-2014 but recently due to state funding cutbacks there has been a decline in admissions for many of the PA state Universities.

As you can see in this link to the BLS, the unemployment rate in Bham has been declining steadily in 2017:https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.al_birmingham_msa.htmAnd a breakdown of their data in many charts and delightful tables with historical data showing the long-term decline in unemployment:https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LAUMT0113820000000...In the BLS' current summary for Bham, you can see that our rate is actually lower than the national average:https://www.bls.gov/regions/southeast/summary/blss...This summary also shows you that Birminghams cost of living remains lower than average, while our average wages/salaries have been increasing a faster clip than the rest of the nation.This is a report on business leader confidence showing that the forecast for Q3 2017 and beyond is optimistic:http://cber.cba.ua.edu/news.htmlThis is a the Birmingham Business Alliance's 2017 economic outlook report.

Seller can then accept the contract, counter offer on the inspection period, or decline to accept.

Seller just wants out so might be open to declining principal vs. a flat price.

After the decline of the section 8 rental I spoke to my broker and she told me section 8 attracts low quality tenants who may damage your home.

This is exactly what we needed to hear.As for the comparison to stocks, we meant that the daily real estate values change, obviously not enough to make a difference but monthly or quartely it makes sense.It was a lead gen platform idea based on my own wants as an investor to have real time data for neighborhoods that are on the decline or the rise.