Ask if there are any classes for your area.Attend your local REIA meetings and find out who the tax sale experts are. 

There was a class action lawsuit in 2005 regarding Federal.

Years ago I attended a training class.

Rate is reasonable at first glance but yes rates are moving down and should continue to shop, get quoted, can be major changes day over day10% Down DSCR doesn't exist and has never existed to my knowledge so I wouldn't count on that15% down does exist and is rare, however as others have noted, usually it doesn't actually work since the restrictions, such as a high DSCR ratio or LTR only rent qualification (and high rate environment) never let the numbers work however as rates continue to fall we may finally be able to see some 85% LTV DSCR Deals actually pencil again!

It honestly depends on the area, the property itself (is it Class A, B, C, D)?

It is much harder to push tax increases when we are in a stagnant or even deflationary environment.  

If you are direct mail marketing in today's environment how's it going for you?

Big change would be 17th street, west of that is class A, east of that is where it starts being downtown Allentown. 

I specialize in single family homes in middle class neighborhoods , working people providing a high quality product for tenants that stay for avg. 5-10 years.   

We found it is helpful to one of the our target groups of residents, first-time, working-class tenants.