So having at least 2 times, buys you peace of mind and detaches you somewhat from the volatility of the R.E investing arena.

If you are in an extremely volatile market, then using a 3 month comps is preferable.

Can wholesaling be a successful business in an area where the housing market is stable and tends to have very low volatility?

The volatility (whether bearish or bullish) cannot be sustained, can it?

I suppose in the bond markets, the volatility is greater than the mortgage market since mortgages still have indexes as a baseline (for this reason).

Over and over again they are telling me that they enjoyed the gains of the past few years in the stock market but see it long term as volatile and want to cash out the gains and put into something with a more reliable income stream where they know what they are getting.

In more volatile markets we may go to an 80% or 75% BER to provide a 20 or 25% Margin of Safety.

RE argument, but there is a false assumption in your post that your real estate equity is 'less volatile'.

Lastly, I took back a few properties a few years back in my volatile markets that I was ok selling on the cheap because my health at the time didn't justify the energy to rehab and retail them to non-existent buyers.All lead to reasons why you can only establish a criteria as a buyer and try to stay within it.

I am planning to maximize and utilize this time to educate myself, understand the market trends in terms of incline/decline of housing volatility (mortgage perspective), job movements, and social/economic/political factor that influences in the RE market.