Out of state/area investors how did you decide where youd invest

[MarieChele Porter]

I have an out of state investment currently in Garfield Heights, Ohio. I would like to do a house hack in Freno, CA once my job transfer goes through, but want to look for growth markets for buy and hold that have good appreciation potential.

Mid-west is good for cash flow but I've noticed that the growth potential is not there. I pretty much picked that market bc that's what I could afford then.

So far to narrow down the list I've started a couple of Excel sheets gathering census information. 1 is to ween out the states/cities with declining populations. The other is to narrow down to cities that have growing populations with over 500k and 1 million population that the 1% rule is possible.

What other things do you or should I look for in picking an out of area investment? I don't have family outside of California so it's pretty much asset based..