An option is, to pay a contractor (assuming you could find someone who knows how to) or estimator to give you an accurate / detailed estimate, separating materials and labor per trade, to verify your rehab costs.

It may be tough to find comps, but you really need to do a market survey of the rent. 

The public MLS is tough to pull comps from.

Small market makes it tough to find a manager who cares.

I think it's a good exercise that some farther down the road have not done in awhile.High value markets are very tough.

I do most of it myself and enjoy the activity but the frequency and timing of the calls making it a problem.Some of the Tenants make a pet rock look smart and call and complain about everything.Others never call and handle minor issues themselves.I'd like to get a handyman to handle the calls but to have even a low priced Handyman go to the property, check out the problem, resolve the issue with 5 minutes of work and use no materials, because the tenants are pre-Madonna's or are too lazy or stupid.  

The podcast, blogs, and forums are full of GREAT material.

We can only make educated guesses based on  historical norms.We are due for a recession at some point but its tough to forecast exactly when so why try?

That's a tough neighborhood BUT I believe you were right in the areas revitalization happening.

EPDM is a wonderful material.