@Chandler Koch Welcome to BP!

Hello Lisa, I'd recommend reaching out directly to the planning department.

Quote from @Michael Evans: What steps do you go through to secure vacant rental properties in rough neighborhoods after a tenant leaves and you're waiting to turn the property over?

Go up higher in price where less buyers to get better cap rate.2.

I wouldn't touch anything outside the urban core. if your strategy is to buy existing and old I'd recommend not to. as a newer investor depending on your liquidity look at build to rent development. building investment properties below market value by 25% and refinancing out of it to do it again. the urban core has tax abatements as well that are 15 years right now you can apply for. that means that taxes will be around $600 to $800 per year. there's cash Flow but the existing inventory market dried up a few years ago in the urban core. local realtors are going to push you to the trash areas like hilltop, south linden, etc because it's the only place numbers work. columbus is great, but remember a tenant who pays $1800 a month is different than a tenant who pays $900 a month. let me know if I can help any other way! 

Other than that, does the house you're looking to buy offer the ability to rent a room or level of the house to someone?

Also underwrite deals as if they were going to be a long term rental and then work up to an STR.

If I had to leave a takeaway from this post before getting too far in it would be that whatever goals are had you have, we have these goals for a reason and typically it does not go exactly as planned but even if it doesn't go as planned, we can pick up where we left off and give it a fresh start.

The cap rate is one tool among many and this one is really only able to give an apples-to-apples comparison about the sale price across multiple commercial properties.

Just going through the process itself is an invaluable lesson.