Quickly establishing market cap rates

[Greg Hills]

Hi folks!

I'm just getting my feet wet with REI. I'm listening to the Bigger Pockets podcasts, and have read a few books e.g. 'The Book on Rental Property Investing' and 'What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know about Cashflow'

I'm looking to generate a 5% cash on cash return with buy & hold rental real estate. I'm considering markets that either I know well personally, or have family I trust in the area. These markets include Middletown, CT; Greenport, NY; Brooklyn & Harlem NYC. I'd consider anything from 250k to 2.5M

How can I quickly establish whether a market will fit with my goals? I've been looking up rental ads, trying to find how much the total house was purchased for, then looking if the monthly rent is greater than 1% of the purchase price before drilling in further.

This approach is slow going. Is there a quicker way to determine if a market could work with my goals?