Where to invest $70,000 in buy and hold

[Donald M.]

Let's say I have $70,000 to invest. I have a chance to get a 5.2% return outside of real estate. As a buy and hold investor, if I can get more than this return, where should I invest/what is the best strategy in order to maximize cash flow? 

The Boston market is extremely expensive; if I am willing to invest out-of-state (which will require my finding a great management team), should I use this as cash for a single property, use it as a down payment for one property, or for multiple simultaneously? How should I identify potential markets? The number cruncher in me would like to obtain national zip code data on rental prices and median purchase prices to calculate where I can the best deal, but I don't want to pay for such data and go through the calculations if it won't be remotely feasible or if there are obvious markets I should be looking at.