None, they don't know how much an area will appreciate as they cannot predict the future. 

I've been out of the mindset of real estate investing for the past 1.5 years as I've been focused on saving / investing in stocks to save up on a down-payment so I'm rusty on my real estate knowledge and therefore hesitant to jump into this deal.

I initially went the stock market route, and I've enjoyed learning about that, but quickly realized that it takes a lot of money in the stock market to make a lot of money.

Local HVAC supplier is a mile away BUT no motors in stock. 

If it's owner occupied and you have huge equity, don't refinance and get the big loan as we head into the predicted down market. 

My understanding you can look up job growth on the census website.But you would have to go into a specific county on that website, which is time consuming.Do you guys know of any website that sort of predicts job growth for few states or may be the whole country?

I.E. you buy a very cheap property, you repaired, paid +25K, got a tenant or sell, then foundation issues again because it settle more than predicted. 

"Buy low, and sell high" works great in the Stock Market. 

Google online savings accounts.Not the stock market...that's using short term funds for a long term investment.

I could predict pretty accurately the sold price.