I’m looking for a SFR as an investment, and have been looking outside of the urban and suburban areas.

Whenever you are buying a property out of state you should do a few things to ensure it's as smooth as possible.Don't buy in the roughest neighborhood in the urban core.

Whenever you are buying a property out of state you should do a few things to ensure it's as smooth as possible.Don't buy in the roughest neighborhood in the urban core.

As times and preferences change and people return to the urban core, these older homes become of more interest both because of location and because of architecture and build quality. 15 years ago, Shepherd, referenced above, was no better than class C and portions of it were war zones as well.

Usually this will be around an urban core of a city.

So is data crunching - as an urban planner, I love using those skills in conjunction with Census data (and I'm oddly thrilled about the new Census this year) to track trends in demographics and real estate values over time to spot areas that are likely to see short and / or long term growth in both cash flow and equity. 

When I move to a new market I set up meetings with brokers, city planners, urban development, lenders, etc. and that's all I do for like a week straight.

There will be a greater urban feel with the downtown South project than what you see in built in the Cary area.

Urban? 

America is and always has been a capitalist society that values it's freedom.