Our market has steady population and job growth too. 

Appreciation is in my opinion a gamble and often times people want the steady cash-flow of investment properties when building their portfolios so they can step away from there full time or part time jobs.With that being said, I am an investor and also invest in the NE Ohio Market and have had upwards of 250 units in our portfolio and continue to purchase here.

By the time you have a large working portfolio and steady cash coming in, you’re already self-insured.

None of them NEEDED the money and were more than happy to spread out the gains as well as still have a steady income coming in through the monthly payments.

Interest rates are starting to inch up squelching some of the demand and more inventory is coming to market with Spring temperatures kicking in.As Norman commented, we need more information about what you're looking for to narrow your search area.

Are rents steady?

Remind them this is not an airBNB vacation rental.As for the AC going out, are the temperatures where the house is that hot that right now they must have AC? 

Whatever you do, just don’t go with the mechanical deadbolt varieties in climates with high temperature variability.

Not sure what will happen to interest rates in the future and I expect a steady growth rate to be conservative, but of course, risk of that it could be higher.

One thing to note is that my wife’s pay is a steady paycheck every month.