Market-evaluation tutorial?

[Scott Sutton]

Hi everyone,

In this post ...

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/51498-question-on-market-evaluation

... I asked for some resources for the purpose of analyzing various markets, and respondents provided a few helpful links. Now I have a related question.

Can anyone point me to a Web resource or book that provides a step-by-step explanation of how to evaluate and compare real-estate markets? In the limited reading I've done thus far, the authors touch on this subject in only the most general terms -- i.e. to evaluate a market, one should consider population growth, economic conditions, infrastructure, average cap rates, housing supply and demand, etc.

While such guidelines are a good starting point, they fall far short of walking an inexperienced investor through the process of conducting such an analysis. I'm sure opinions differ widely on what factors one should consider (and the relative importance of each) -- and I realize that a high-level analysis of a city's real-estate market has limited utility (i.e. 'all real estate is local,' opportunity exists in most every city, etc.) -- but a 'market-evaluation tutorial' would be exceedingly helpful for someone in the process of determining where he or she wants to invest.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. In the short time I've been on BP, I've learned a lot, and I look forward to one day being able to return the favor to other investors.

Cheers,

Scott...