Positive cashflow and rent/price ratios in upscale prospects

[Gareth Robinson]

Hi, I just got finished with the book and one thing I noticed was that the 2% rule and several other pieces of information relating the value of the property to the rent was tossed around. Continuously, the appreciation value was said to be "a cheery on top" of the investment. For all of my current investments, I have extremely bad price-to-rent ratios (around 0.8%) but I have been primarily investing for location/hot markets and have seen roughly 15% appreciation annually. I am on the west coast so the property markets are much hotter than the midwest/east coast, and the average value of a property in my region is roughly 300-400k, so significantly higher than the 100k figure tossed around in the book quite often. For those of you who are investing in hot/expensive markets, how much of an emphasis do you place in positive cash flow, and why? I have been running analytics and distressed/lower income areas (which can generate a higher p/r ratio) have been seeing significantly lower appreciation because the primary demand in the region is from upper-middle class families.