Which? Seattle, Burlington, Minneapolis, Madison, Grand Rapids...

[Jessica Harriet]

Which of these is currently the best market for long-term buy-and-hold investing? What data should I gather to go about analyzing the question? Any personal experience living and/or investing in these markets? Thank you in advance for all your advice!

a. Seattle, WA

b. Portland, OR

c. Portland, ME

d. Burlington, VT

e. Minneapolis, MN

f. Milwaukee, WI

h. Madison, WI

i. Grand Rapids, MI

j. Traverse City, MI

Background: For a series of personal reasons, I need to relocate my family soon. I have a lot of flexibility in terms of where I can choose to live, and I've narrowed down the options to these nine cities or their metropolitan areas. An additional factor I would like to consider in my relocation decision is the potential I will have to build wealth through buying and renting out houses. For the sake of my query, please assume I have enough cash on hand to operate in any of these environments. Which would be the best choice for my pocketbook? For example, I would like to compare annual growth of jobs, population, home prices, and income across these markets but I don't know where to access these data for the last decade or so. 

[Natalie Kolodij]

I live in Seattle

Our average home price is right about $700k. If you enjoy tying up $140,000 as a downpayment alone every time you buy then sure...it's great here. We have been hitting about 10% appreciation annual. But it's close to impossible to find cash flowing properties.