I'm from Northern Cali as well, and I invest exclusively out of state... a lot of the popular turnkey cities don't really work any more, and I work with a lot of California-based OOS investors that have come to me with 1% deals that were plenty cheap but don't net any profit at the end of the year.As the opportunities become limited around the country, us spend-happy Californians need to be prudent about throwing 100k down in markets we're unfamiliar with.Let me know if you'd ever like to link up!

They’re popular in the NH, Cape Cod, Vermont area around here.It is an investment for me.

Adding on to that is popular areas with good tenants are in demand by everyone not just investors but locals needing housing.It's possible to find stuff though, but be patient and don't lose sight of the deal...

There can be trouble with this as many popular countries and introduced or always had restrictions on foreign ownership of real estate. 

I'm not popular in that area.

Her's a short list (there are others):Bigger Groups:Propelio - probably the most popular group currently. 

You could hop on Airbnb to see how many private rooms are in your area and see how many reviews they have to get a feel for how popular the area is for Airbnb.

this is quite popular on BP and that is those that buy NPN  those are notes that are in default ( non payment) banks and other investors unload them at a discount because they don't want to deal with them or they want to raise capital or other reasons.. 

A lot of NYC CPAs will have knowledge on popular neighboring states for REI, like PA.

IE the 1% rules seems to be popular place to price things.