However, when the trend switches, and believe the trend will switch at some point, the renters will start buying homes again vacating these multifamily buildings.

To figure this out, I think if you can bring in enough income every month to cover all your expenses and debt, and have some savings for investment, you will be in good shape.

Someone will rent on the cheap and leave In good shape if the deposit is sizable.

A couple of other things that you might want to think about are the historical trends for the neighborhood in regards to rents and prices, age of the housing stock and major events that have occurred recently such as new employers.  

However, my units are lower-end, and takes a lot of work to fix and get them in shape to the point where I get very few calls.  

KC lower end stuff also.Cleveland is similar to KC IMO.Ill give you an example of a few that we bought in rough parts of town2 tenanted duplexes in decent shape tenanted for $900pm each.Unhappy tenants and pissed of landlord.

As a mortgage buyer and having owned some assets where I used DOS to accelerate, the growing trend I see around has me believing there might be something to hunting for these specially.  

If a problem ever arose, they were able to refer to that scope of work (see a trend here?).

From what I've read an FHA would be a great deal to work out with the low down payment and interest rates, but the home would have to be in good shape right?

The house is in great shape, just needs cosmetic stuff (that I know of).