FREE market research? Population growth, eco trends etc.

[Zach Howard]

Any recommendations for free tools to do market research? Especially for things like population growth/decline, economic trends etc.

And what things do you recommend checking when trying to decide whether a location is a good place to invest. My understanding is that the market is more important than the property. So really need to do some deep market research, haha, but not so willing to pay for this, at least not at this stage when I'm just starting out. If I already have some properties under my belt and they are cash flowing, I'll be much more willing to save time by using paid tools etc. Not sure whether this makes sense, but that's me :-)

Thanks.