The one issue I have with Houston is that it's  geographically located in a region that in the future, will most likely see more powerful and frequent hurricanes and flooding due to climate change / global warming.

What would you do if you were in my shoesYou travel for work frequently which is paid for and reimbursed by the company you work at.

I am working full time with an irregular schedule and frequent travel for business.

Hope things are well in MN and I still go back to MPLS frequently to visit family. 

I frequently hear the importance of using a local lender (local to the market you are buying in), but because we are looking in several areas, I'm thinking it may be easier logistically to interview several lenders nearer to us, rather than the actual property markets.

One source of cities to avoid is Neighborhood Scout's 100 most dangerous cities.Disaster Risk - Some parts of the country suffer frequent natural disasters.

Maybe erentpayment.com,  buildium mentioned frequently on BP, 

Go a boat load of frequent flyer miles..

For reasons not worth typing I  typically obtained this information past 1 pm at the earliest and frequently later. 

And because you're in Texas, you should definitely branch out to Oklahoma.However, and this really isn't directed at you but rather those in states like California, I think that too frequently people focus on that too much to the point that they miss killer deals everywhere.I live in San Diego and sure, California seems to be tough, but I don't think it's nearly as tough as people think it is.For the most part, if landlords treat tenants in California fairly -- which every tenant should be treated fairly no matter where they live -- they're not going to face too many problems.Even at the height of COVID, it was the slumlords that were having trouble collecting rent.