In urban areas it tends to be viewed as a negative.Applied to your situation I would agree with what others have said. 

Then you can tell me what I got wrong in my forecast afterward :)Ok going to do my best to get there.. traffic can be nuts from lake O..  

In my experience, tax and mortgage delinq homeowners tend to want to stay in their homes.

I believe it tends to give me a slightly lower return, because the sponsor is going to be more careful, and if there is a severe downturn will prevent me from taking catastrophic losses.

Management tends to be about 18% for STRs in this area.  

I also tend to place less weight on medical bills.

Although the minimum stay tends to be lower as most folks come for long weekends.

The bread-and-butter 2-6 unit multifamilies are still NOT appealing to the people you're envisioning in the areas you mentioned.The Elm to Maple corridor tends to brighten up a bit as you move north from Bridge Street--say, from Prospect Street north.If you live in the building you have a degree of control over who you're renting to, so that can insulate you from some problems you might encounter as an absentee landlord.  

Howdy Jade...I'm next door to you in Augusta.We've filled rentals for our SFH's in October/November but come December applicants tend to focus on the holidays and, often, in January they're too broke FROM the holidays to consider moving.  

I have no trouble getting renters, but they tend to be living month to month, and always one finacial emergency away from not paying rent.