What happens if that town suffers a loss of a major business?

Its easy to overestimate the selling price and underestimate the repairs and end up making nothing or suffering a loss.Rental investment (regardless of exactly what type of property), OTOH, don't tend to spin off large chunks of cash.

If the tenant suffers a loss because they don't have insurance, well, that's really too bad for them.

Orlando does not seem like a city that suffers from high vacancy rates. 

Hello BP Members! Thank you for clicking through. My fiance and I are considering purchasing a newly built duplex in Houston. Its 2200 square feet, one unit on top, one unit on bottom. Both are 3/1's. Identical layout...

If the national economy is doing very well, real estate in a certain city may still suffer because a large employer decided to move headquarters or move labor to a cheaper country.

So as others have said their vacancy rate suffers..

In my mind, it depends on what the nature of the crash is - for example, if the crash is due to a contraction in the job market, pretty much every segment suffers (renters can't afford rents, people don't have free money to buy flipped homes, etc.).

You want to deal with motivated sellers, and you might have to let this seller suffer some more to improve his level of motivation.

In this case, your mortgage payment will be so low that even if the market rent goes down, you can lower your rent and not suffer negative cashflow.2.