I am underwriting the property and having trouble estimating the expected maintenance.

If a landlord is providing a safe, clean, bed bug free place to place it is expected that the tenant will reciprocate.

what level of returns are you expecting?

A tenant that is paying more expects to receive the housing condition as they have signed up for.

I've been looking into the local markets and neighborhoods in more detail over the past week and a lot of areas that looked like they might have good price/rent ratios look like they also have significant amounts of crime (in retrospect, that's as expected I guess haha) so I'm going to be doing a bit more reading about Indy to learn more about what neighborhoods are up and coming and look in detail at another market or two just to get a better feel for what the micro market looks like based on the macro market numbers I was able to find and sort.  

For fear of sounding like a trite broken record, It's such a huge struggle to find reliable people.

If you dont expect a loss, it does not matter. 

This is a lot harder question to answer than you would expect. 

I'd say it's stable, but I wouldn't expect a lot of appreciation.

However, I do try to understand all expectations and limitations up front.