Rent vs Buy

Here is a great chart on Rent vs. Buy in 50 sample US cities.  

In years gone past some of my conservative investor friends lived by the motto that "if you can't drive to it in a day to check on it yourself then don't buy it".  Today we are not only a global economy and people have second homes in other countries but investors are buying properties in a variety of states.  This chart may be helpful for you to identify a city you may not have considered.  

http://info.trulia.com/file.php/1908/Prices+to+Rent+Ratio+For+Website.pdf