Investing and renting in rural communities and small towns

[Noah Carrico]

I live in a small farming town about an hour from the regional city. I have noticed that online tools are consistently inaccurate for my area, if they have any data at all. For many properties there are few comps and the few local landlords I have asked are reluctant to share their numbers (understandably). For those who invest in places off the beaten path, where do you get your numbers for things like rent estimates?