Determining Good Areas to Invest In

[Ben Lerner]

Hey everyone!  First time post - long time follower.  I suppose to keep this as simple and straightforward as possible, my question is, what are some of the resources people use to determine general areas, cities, neighborhoods that have potential to be good for real estate investments?

My wife and I have several cashflowing properties abroad (Greece and Germany) but are now looking to expand to the US.   One of the largest challenges we are currently facing is determining an area to focus on.  There are plenty of those "Top 10 Areas to Invest in" articles that I can surely follow (not really), but I'd prefer to determine and do the research on my own.  

Any pointers / advice on how to go about conducting my own research ( such as nationwide indexes, unemployment rates, avg income per capita etc.) would be more than appreciated.

Thanks!