Key Criteria and Sources for Identifying a viable Market

[Kasey Gourley]

Hello BiggerPockets,

I have been slowly, but surely building my REI foundation via listening to the podcasts, reading the forums, reading books (just finished J Scott's "The Book on Flipping Houses" and "The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs"), and have begun to analyze deals.

I am a numbers and process/systems guy, also cautious and like to check all the boxes, so I have been looking at various markets to potentially invest and I am wondering what other out-of-state BRRRR investors look for when identifying a new market. How you are identifying viable markets for investment? What are the criteria you look for in a healthy market, what are the key economic data points or statistics you're looking at, and what websites and sources are you using to gather this data?

Thanks for all the help!