Assessing New Cities for Rental Properties

[Joshua Zastrow]

Hi all, I'm interested in learning what factors lead to certain metros to become hot rental markets (or what makes them so desirable right now). 

An example: Is there more demand for rental properties in Chicago than in Boston? If they're equal, will there be higher demand in Chicago or Boston in the future?

Some intuitive factors could be the rate of job growth (number of jobs available over time), or rental price change (year over year median rent) in a given city (or pull values from best performing neighborhood). 

I figured there are a lot of seasoned pros on here, are there other factors that you would consider if you had to pick a new market?

- Josh

[Jason Marcordes]

@Joshua Zastrow I don't get very far out of Chicago so I'm not analyzing markets often but look into the trends of population growth, job growth, and crime levels dropping. There's a great resource you can check out (if it doesn't post, PM me and I'll send it over) http://www.usa.com/.