$100k to start investing into real estate, in California. Stay, or go out of state?

[Harry Dhaliwal]

Hi guys,

I have about $100k saved up with the sole purpose of investing. My goal right now is to get to $5k in monthly cashflow as soon as I can, to accomplish this as soon as possible I get the feeling investing out of CA is going to be my best bet. I've heard that for cashflow specifically, the midwest is one of the best places to invest. I have an agent friend in Chicago Illinois who has a few rentals and helps out a lot of investors there that I have been speaking with. The numbers sound great, but I just got done doing some research on Chicago and two things concern me. 1) Crime, it's no secret that crime is for sure an issue there. 2.) Property taxes are high. 

So my question is, being a young guy should I play the slow game and make do with the deals that I come across locally in California (MCOL, about 300-400k per single family home where I live) or do I take my money out of state and invest in a market with better cashflow and where my 100k will stretch a lot further? If out of state is the best bet to hit my cashflow goals, then which markets should I look into? Ideally I'd like to not worry about crime and be in a market that is growing and economically healthy and sound so that 5-10 years from now I'd have a good amount of equity in the investments I made to buy more deals. What do you guys think I should do?