Buying rental property in an area without rentals

[Paul Marco]

Hello,

I've been doing some research on a few rural areas. What I have found is that many of them do not have any rental properties in the area. It's all home purchases. It occurs to me that if you are the only one in town who is renting out housing units, you can make a killing from the lack of competition. Smart investors would know this, so why would they not have done this already?

Do we have anyone here who owns rental properties in small towns that knows the pitfalls I don't?