Hello everyone,

I will start by saying that I am a brand new investor. I have one property with two houses on it I decide to live in one and rent the other(house hacking as I've heard it called), this put me on to the world of real estate. 

I live in a tiny town in East Texas population 471. There are many other small farming towns around with anywhere from 500 to 3000 people. There is some industry around ( I work at a steel mill about 30 minutes from home) there are also so oilfield operations around. Other than that there is chicken farms, schools, and prisons. 

I've been looking to buy another property but am having trouble calculating things such as property valve and rent that I could charge in this area. There are literally almost no houses up for rent anywhere around here which makes me believe that a rental would do good. My sister recently got a job in a neighboring town and had to rent the only property that she could find for rent for much more than what seemed reasonable. My father has a few small rentals in my home town that are always rented but I feel like he is under charging for most of them since it only takes him like a day to rent a property out. I don't know of any other investors around here to ask what they are charging. 

Do any of yall have experience owning rentals in these micro towns? 

What do I need to worry about?

How do I figure out how much to charge when there is nothing to compare too?

General thoughts on the concept of small town investing are encouraged.

Thanks,

Louis Collins