I should preface this by saying I'm a statistics junkie.That said, I found the following website yesterday while trying to do research for properties in an area I'm not geographically knowledgeable in.http://www.bestplaces.net/housing/city/colorado/pu...While I still want to dive in deeper, this was a great website for figuring out median incomes, median rents, vacancy rates, crime stats, school quality and pretty much any other information I might want to know about a city.As always, your mileage may vary.

Those HUD numbers are from statistics taken from lots of housing units all over the place, and no single one of us could gather that data from our own units. 

I want to know are there any research materials or real estate journals I can get that will give me up to date information on trends or statistics on a given area ??? 

In the market all you can do is lose your principal and if you stick to low cost index funds, statisticly speaking, you are never going to lose all of it. 

"the lack of deals out there"  A local realtor James Orr does real good market statistics and fix and flip volume I believe is up this year over last in Northern Colorado.  

There is story after story here and many other places to support that statistic. 4th - loan sources for 5 plus investment properties.

Are you kidding me to think thats statistically significant???

@Peter Pearson I'd love to share my notes on how to statistically evaluate an area for investment using Temecula, San Marcos and Fallbrook as examples.

I've seen various statistics, inventorys, economics, and directions.  

It is not discriminatory to disclose that an area is high crime or has low rated schools regardless of the racial make up of the community, that is just measurable fact about the area.And sorry, knowing whether an area is depressed or not is not a judgement call it should be  and is easily identifiable by area statistics.