Your business will grow while the slumier slum lord's business will shrink.

Thus, shrinking your resale margin to where it makes no financial sense in terms of risk/return.

Throughout the Rust Belt but especially in a place like Pittsburgh, where the housing stock is more often than not seventy, eighty, ninety years old, where the population continues to shrink and the price of getting things fixed continues to rise, the self-managing buy-and-hold model is next to impossible to get off the ground without significant handyman skills.2.

They wash up great, don't pill or shrink and are a nice size.

Clays shrink and swell depending on their moisture content/plasticity and you don't want your foundations to do the same.

I won't get on my spill about the shrinking middle class, but this is something I'm passionate about and would like to earn money.    

The type of tenant you deal with will make all the difference.Realize you will have some out of pocket expenses from time to time but if you self manage it might be ok.As time goes on rents should increase and your payment will shrink proportionately.

is the opportunity, on average, is shrinking (a.k.a. buy now) or expanding (wait a bit)?

Ask them if they are flipping a property if they would be willing to walk you through it and explain what they found and see as issues . . . a lunch offer can often make you a valuable friend in the local game.As others have said, this is a strange market we are in and as interest rates continue to climb, the pool of eventual buyers for your property will shrink with more properties sitting on the market for longer periods of time. 

If this keeps up and more employers get rid of mass amounts of people, based on current data %'s maybe we will see a 13% to 18% shrink in rents or sales price in some areas.I assume lending/banking will be the next industry to announce major layoffs, then health care as insurance is canceled.