Where to gain info when it comes to rental investments!

[Elise Bickel Tauber]

One question I get asked a lot by investors who I'm working with is "What are good areas?" 
Well, as an agent I am limited on how to respond. And I also dont like just giving a blanket list of high demand areas because the areas are always changing.
I just wanted to share a couple resources I use daily to keep an eye on our market, Pittsburgh PA, and a handful of investments over in Philly. 

When it comes to crime statistics and area ratings, My #1 go-to is https://www.niche.com/places-t...
I really like Niche because it not only gives a general area rating, but school ratings, crime, housing, diversity, and nightlight. It gives a lot of information about average home prices for sale and rent, population, crimes (and what categories of crime), and job rating. This is updated regularly and keeps a good pulse on real time rating.

For rent values, I do use a mix of our mls system, my database of currently looking renters, and then the website below. Since I know most investors don't have the mls or an active renter pool, I would heavily look at this site : https://www.rentometer.com/
Rentometer is nice (especially if you do the pro option), because it will give you an average rent range along with the comps it uses so that you can look at each comp and compare it to yours. Overall I think the rent amounts are very accurate. You do need to be careful, especially in the city, that your range isn't too large, because if you use a 2 mile radius you may end up pulling comps from a much nicer (or worse) area that can skew the results.

Hopefully those sites help!
What other resources do you recommend?