The bank I work at would require the property to be close by.

I read there was some frustration with this by STR ownersThanks in advanceRobin

I would start by finding areas you actually WANT to live and go from there.Picking a place to call home simply because it has a real estate market that you feel will fit your goals is a great way to end up miserable. 

Try to find something that is surrounded by residential homes if you can.

If there's anyone else from my neck of the woods, I'm wide open to learning how to navigate this niche.

-------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

Quote from @Dawn Harris: We have a STR managed by a property management company.

Pushing into other, close-by, markets is the best (and maybe only) way to make it work.

The challenge with unsafe areas is (1) potentially higher cost of maintenance such as broken windows, etc. and (2) this is by no means meant to be discriminatory but anecdotally from people I've spoken to the challenging tenants tend to be at the lower price points.

If you switch to or stay with the custom tax settings, you'll need to update the amount of tax collected to 7.75% because the 9% city tax will be collected and remitted by law to the city on your behalf, but  the 6% state and 1.75% county tax will be collected and sent to you to remit to the state and via Avenu to the county.