On the national STR groups I follow, there are hosts voicing concerns about the saturation of these areas and what that means for property prices, rates & regulation.

Its a tough pill to swallow but the market is saturated and there's plenty of professionally designed places. 

The metro area is pretty saturated with investors, flippers and traditional buyers which makes it tough to find a good deal (at least by my standards).I would look for rentals out in your area. 

Be careful about buying in areas saturated with REOs and short on market sales.

Now we are into Mobile Home Parks and are fat dumb and happy in that position now.

things can work well one day and break the next.i think you did all you could do. i'm not sure if there is a pressure test for sewer systems or not. i know the last house i bought, there was 99.99% saturation on one of the walls. i was sure that there was a leak in the pipe behind the wall. i called out a leak specialist and he said that he could detect even the smallest of small holes in a pipe. the saturation ended up being from the window sill being sloped and the water ran into the wall. easy enough fix.the $75 charge to have the leak specialist eased my mind, but in your case, if there wasn't even a faint leak or crack, i don't think you would have had anyway of knowing beforehand.

Attach a nice big fat earnest money check.

Just thought it would be interesting to hear first hand from investors during that time where you were at prior to the crash (property pricing, difficulty in obtaining good deals, market saturation, etc and what happened once the crash came, how you survived or thrived during this and then how you did when everything started to come back up.

These businesses are saturated with experienced people, who are seeing margins deteriorate due to competition.

well not so much lately.SF Bay Area is getting more and more saturated with the "Want to's" rather than "can do"s"..