I discovered BiggerPockets relatively recently and have become interested in the idea of investing in real estate. I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area, and I don't particularly want to own rental property here for a variety of reasons - very expensive, landlord-unfriendly political climate, and I think the risk of a very destructive Bay Area earthquake is underrated. So none of the strategies for investing locally will work for me, and I pretty much have to look out of state. I'm interested in buying and holding real estate long term that will cash flow immediately.

One of the things I'm wondering about is how to determine what area(s) of the country are places it's worthwhile for me to spend time looking for potential rental properties in, especially as a complete newbie who has never bought any kind of property before. Living in the bay area, pretty much any random part of the country has houses that look pretty cheap to me. And I don't have any relatives or other associates in any other part of the country, so I can't take advantage of any kind of local connection.

I've basically been looking on Redfin for house prices in cities that I picked pretty much at random. So far, it seems like Des Moines, Iowa has some single-family homes that might be good investments based on the 1% rule and assuming a quick look at rents on craigslist is accurate (of course I don't know what I don't know about evaluating properties in any given area). But like I said, I'm picking regions to look at pretty much randomly, and I'm worried I could spend a long time fruitlessly looking at home prices in some place or another without feeling like I know enough about an area remote from me to feel confident in pulling the trigger and buying something (or determining that there are no good investments in a place, giving up and trying again somewhere else). Does anyone have any thoughts on what the best way to approach this is, given my level of experience?