I have been driving my neighborhood and I also have others driving around the area to find vacant properties. 

-Most homes in my neighborhood are 3bd/1ba.

Mistily definitely take your money into another neighborhood and buy a 2-3 unit.

Go to the register of deeds and do a search for the previous owner.

Class of neighborhood, population growth or decline locally, job growth or decline locally, amount of new construction, percentage if home ownership but having watched rents since the late 80s on my parents houses and having my own properties for a decade or so I haven't ever seen significant declines in rent I have seen rent stagnation and rent growth but never any real drops out side of a couple areas where neighborhoods declined greatly.

I have a sfh rental in a neighborhood that is 90% rentals.

Separately, got a house under contract in a solid neighborhood of Kenosha this week, continuing to invest in the area.

I am currently testing out a smaller outfit and currently have mixed feelings about them so I am still in search of the right management company as I will be investing in more properties here pretty soon.

Best of luck with your search and let me know if I can help :)!

Lining the loan up afterwards is similar, there is no time crunch for closing and gives you time to search for best funding. other than that, you can search for better rates but you'll be within .25% of that most likelycongrats!!