Newbie's Tentative Game Plan

[Andrew Schmidt]

So. I've read some real estate books, and I would like to make the leap into buy-and-hold real estate investing. I've started by researching which cities have the best market to buy properties using the criteria of projected population increase, strongest economy, and price to rent ratio for now. It's a lot, and I've only narrowed the cities I want to move to to like, 30. But before I do more in depth research (crime, price to income ratio, taxes, landlord laws, etc.) potentially costing me dozens of hours I want to make sure I'm not grossly overlooking something in my inexperience. Has anyone ever undertaken anything like this? I have the freedom to move wherever, and I want to set myself up for success as best I can as early on as I can.

Any help/advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.