How do you evaluate the city where you want to invest?

[Rada Vassileva]

I'm a newbie and still learning how to analyze/compare different areas. I have local lists of Absentee Owned Homes, Paid Off Mortgages, Recently Flipped Homes, etc. for every neighborhood in a particular city (I'm using census tract as a proxy for neighborhood) and I'm trying to figure out what to make of all this info.

What is the most relevant information about a city from real estate investment perspective?