@Mikal Lewis i would google (your city name) reia meet ups.

I live in Auburn Alabama and the market here is pretty crazy so I have been looking at surrounding cities like Montgomery and Birmingham that are bigger and more affordable.I know that the typical down payment someone’s needs for commercial is 25% so short of me getting seller financing, or a partner, or some other creative finance path my purchase power leads me towards properties that are typically in lower income areas- at least for the ones I’ve spotted. (200K ish) I’ve listened to pretty much every podcast multiple times and often hear people saying that when they begin they focus more on cash flow and as they grow they look more towards appreciation opportunities.

Depends on where you are in the city and what size multi-family you're looking for.

If vacancy rates doubled in your city, could you survive? 

Are there any specific primary residence loan programs that you are seeing in the Baltimore City area?

Cleveland Heights is one of the slowest cities around here.

The City keeps changing the rules and none of us know where it is all going to end up.

Depends what the city says.

The market for sure is not a Austin or dfw market but Tyler being a growing medical city, it seems to be growing well. 

What you don't want to have happen is you get the perfectly-appraised property and then the bottom falls out of the city it's in and the values go into the trash and you can't recover (different than a general real estate crash, because those tanked values will come back up...just don't sell while they are down).All the while, have that steady cash flow in place.