Neighborhood Scout

[Dustin Cook]

I am planning to invest out of state in buy and hold rentals, because I'm in Los Angeles.  I'm a subscriber to neighborhood scout and I was wondering how everyone else is using this tool.  So far the main things I'm giving weight to are vacancy, school rating and crime rating.  It seems like they narrow the results down to a small radius, so I am curious to how everyone uses this site and how accurate you feel it is.  I know these online tools, zillow, rentometer, neighborhood scout, etc need to be taken with a grain of salt, but I'd like to use them when appropriate.