Brian,I don't have a specific suggestion but I would start with what agency or companies are insuring a lot of rentals.  

I have 500K to invest in cash and there is a lot of opportunities out there, I'm not familiar with those specific cities so it's confusing.

Any time you hear someone say "Oakland is ___________" without specifying a specific area in Oakland, just know that they are automatically wrong. :)

I would be happy to talk more with you about what your goals are and what you are more specifically looking for!

The encroachment agreement has nothing specific to a change in ownership but as I said before the subparagraph "binding effect, recordation" states the following:"it is agreed by record owner, her heirs, successors and assigns here to this agreement will be recorded in the office of the blank County North Carolina register of deeds.

Are you moving to NE Ohio specifically to invest?

It wasn't until we were into change orders when things got down to specifics.

I don't know about California, but our Texas purchase contracts specifically prohibit the seller from signing any new leases during escrow without the written permission of the buyer.

There is specifically a Sears outlet that sells scratch and dent.

More specifically, they are worried that the appraisers won't give full credit for the upgrades, and will not / may not look outside of the development to find comps (even though the others are less than a mile away).