Many suburbs have their own process for inspecting buildings as part of the sale process, and non conforming units in the suburbs can rapidly become illegal units which is a whole different animal.

The inspector will give you a detailed report worth its weight if they find something you may overlook.

Self Management is becoming a bit cumbersome....so I am trying to weight out some options. 

It's a great strategy if you are in a rapidly appreciating area where the rents haven't caught up.

In terms of development, Brewerytown and some part of South Philly are appreciating rapidly.

Population is declining somewhat, but not rapidly, and there are new jobs being created (with higher income potential), so I don't think the population is that bad of an indicator here.  

The insanely rapid growth through gentrification and new construction in so many neighborhoods has gotten pretty out of hand, thus deals are few and far between, relevant to Columbus imo.

@Luke Andersen Luke, in order to avoid the classic “analysis paralysis” I have found it best to really narrow down your REI goals then do some research from there. 1) Figure out what exactly it is that you are trying to achieve with REI (cash flow, rapidly growing equity, etc.) 2) Next, find your niche in the market (SFR, small MF, small commercial, industrial, etc.). 3) From there, you can use a good couple hours on Google to find maybe 4-5 markets that match your criteria. 4) Once you find these, try to dig into specific neighborhoods and find out crime rates, school zones, walking distances to places, etc.

I'm in grand rapids and starting to see some good deals come up.

You can begin by weighting factors of each property condition to a whole rather than individually.