Sure a downturn sucks, but it’s temporary, especially in blue chip locations. 

Moisture / water / mold, knob & tube wiring, foundation issues, ancient plumbing, rust on the breaker panels, termite tunnels, powder post beetle damage, cedar post supports, improper footings, temporary lally columns, etc.As to writing an offer, that's a sensible and common approach. 

Have you ever seen an introverted, analytic-type personality get emotional? 

Instead of picking a location based on emotion or what another investor said, pick one based on real data points.

I am under the school of thought that these migrations are going to be largely temporary in relation to things normalizing.

I totally get where your coming from, I have empathy, yet your allowing it to "own you" and act emotionally going forward, a recipe for disaster.

I would recommend you use data to make a decision, instead of emotions or what each investor will say, because each investor (even myself, and especially myself) are biased either towards or against their current markets.We are humans we make mistakes.What if you collected data on crime rates, price to rent ratios, school data and compared them over all the cities and let the data decide?

@Jacob Stokes Honestly, when it comes to Real Estate Investing, you have to try to force yourself from removing yourself emotionally from the process, meaning your love or hate for cats should not weigh towards making a decision about a tenant but more about the tenant's qualification. 

Need to separate the emotions from all of this and treat it as a business.

Motivation can be either emotional distress, situational distress or both.