Additionally, some of these areas have provided above average property value appreciation post recession and in particular the last few years.

During the recession I no longer had a paying job, and decided to get into real estate investing.

Rentals are pretty recession resistant, and if you try to time the market to get the best value you'll probably miss.3.

Hey @Laretta YoungBP boogs are great, ive bought like....5 of them , including long distance....Im also from out of state and I was looking for a place to invest, I did my reaseraches, found few great markets, but the problem is that everyone else invest in those markets....so I was looking for under-the-radar markets, markets that regarding raw data (unemployments, job growth, population growth....) are not right at the top.so I found Des Moines , Iowa, right now im in a middle of a flip there, but I have no reason to leave this area after that.I think that even though other places perform better, for an out of state investor, its more important to have a system, and people he can trust in that market (if you bought David Greene's long distance... through BP store, they also gave you an access to a pdf file he wrote called "the core 4")@Darson Grantham you forgot to put other important links :)this one,  hopefully it will be right again this time:https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/01/these-7-recession-proof-cities-can-offer-security-in-an-economic-slump.html and this onehttps://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/slideshows/best-places-to-live-in-the-us-for-families?

But this is the EXACT reason that when I go to by an STR, I choose mature vacation rental markets that have weathered many recessions (1981, 1991, 2001, and 2008) rather than jumping on the metro market STR bandwagon that is relatively new as of the past 10 years, and comparatively unproven during a downturn. 

I already made an offer on a 2BR in Kaka'ako last week, and the sellers dropped the price significantly in their counter-offer, but I ultimately walked away from the deal after they were unwilling to drop further.I have heard that the Hawaii RE market is resilient, but I have to imagine that the economic uncertainty and impending recession due to Covid-19 will drive prices down to some extent in the short-term.

Not necessarily in that order since in the 2001 recession Raleigh/Durham and RTP were hammered pretty hard, unlike the others. 

During the Recession their appraisals were higher about 25% higher than I was paying for the properties! 

@Chad Coleman as others mentioned, it's probably one or several of these factors: priced too high, isn't marketed correctly, doesn't have the right combination of amenities for its area, this is the worst time of year to list, and this is the worst year to list since the recession ...it could be one of those items, all of those items, or a combination...A suggestion:In most markets, price reductions have increased exponentially...however, I constantly see sellers making small, almost meaningless price reductions of 1-2%.

Often, as long as the lender is getting paid on-time, and they don't see any other red flags, they'll leave the owner alone...on the flip side, now that we're heading into a recession, lenders are getting much stricter, and it's possible that some lenders will start enforcing due on sale clauses (but, that's just a guess)...