Jason these problem can be visualized like these:a) Cheap Money regimeb) Expensive money regime (post 22) Then we do have always options for investment :a) liquid cash investmentsb) stock / bond portfolioc) Equity residential investmentd)Debt investment There's recent survey from Citigroup that showing a family office has different strategy when financial condition is moving from cheap money to expensive money regime, for example, during 2010-2022 cheap money regime, it's not difficult to be agressive in equity investment (such as buying rental) as spread is huge (6-8%) ; but during expensive money era, like someone also mentioned above, the spread is only 2-3% now.I can always generate 8-9% "almost safely" with public interval fund or BDC while equity is also offerig something like 8-9% IRR, so between debt investment and equity investment , is not big of spread.

Buyers cannot visualize themselves living in the home.

These just happened to go beyond what we were able to visually see. 

. :)Many times, the pipes will be updated visually, but galvanized behind the walls. 

Hey Mike, good discussion and good that you have some clear expectations going in.As others have mentioned, since you'll be living there, it can be better to start with a subset of cities that you'll genuinely enjoy living in, then work backwards into data and metrics from there.For the cities you mentioned, here's a visualization of current rent-to-price ratios.

@Ben ClingerHi Ben, I just noticed your post.Toledo just clarified their inspection criteria for section 8 houses and decided they wanted their cake and to eat it too...we don't have to have an interior inspection (since LMHA inspects that during their inspection), but we DO have to pay for a Lead Inspector contractor to visually inspect the exterior of the house and of course we DO have to pay the $45 fee (which is of course what this is all about).LMHA of course inspects the outside of houses along with the inside so the whole lead inspection is redundant.

They would send the handi men over and do the visual inspections, giving me a heads up on everything.  

We saw it and visually inspected it the first day on market and put in a no contingencies offer (no inspection, no appraisal, cash) immediately for $90,000.

Check out this data visualization I made showing migration by county, the rent/price (1% rule indicator) and population data.

I think that once she can get into the local community and have a visual reference of what is to come, things will become more clear for her.Tell me if I have totally missed the mark and I will quietly go back to my beer and popcorn and continue reading this thread ;-)