Investing in a small town. Will it rent?

[Marc Hemmes]

Newbie here. I live in Colorado but I'm priced-out of the Front Range, so I've been looking at properties in my hometown in Iowa. There are nice looking single family houses for reasonable prices. The cash flow works out, but... if I start investing in a small town, how do I know if a property will actually rent?

It's a nice small town of 10,000 with a prospering private college. The town has been slowly but steadily growing over the past several decades. I'm not seeing any new multifamily housing being built to house the newcomers. When I search online, there are some rentals available, but I can't tell if the market is stagnant or not. My parents still live in the area but they don't really keep track of what's going on in town.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks