Learning my market... How?

[Blake Billington]

I need advise on how to find information about my market. I'm in the Wichita, KS area and like any city there are good and bad neighborhoods. I have no idea where to find information such as current rent rates for a given area and what class neighborhood the property is in. I am interested in a few properties but to run an accurate analysis I need to know what I can charge for rent and do not want to buy in an area where the property value will deprecitate. I know that zillow has estimated rental rates but I'm not sure how accurate they are.

Please help.