I think Birmingham will be fine long term - that said, I think a lot of tremendous growth in Huntsville/Madison has likely been somewhat at the expense of Birmingham. 

NE jackson ,  Madison county Rankin county sure but those so called C neighborhoods are full of old homes and extremely tough to manage properties with very little choice of PM .. its simply in my mind one of the worst places for an out of state investor to buy. 

I'm also looking at Madison because of its proximity to Nashville.  

As background, my house is in a pretty popular neighborhood in a medium-sized city (Madison, WI) with a strong sellers' market. 

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An IRA such as that held by ETC (they have their own in-house custodian Madison Trust) will be invested into a single LLC.  

Changed my custodian to Madison Trust.

I would recommend you to look at cities around Jackson like Clinton, Madison, pearl, etc.. where you can get appreciation and good tenants because Jackson has very high crime rate and most areas are like D and F class areas. 

We operate in Onondaga, Oneida, Madison, Oswego, Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Jefferson, Lewis, and some cross over. 

I am pretty certain that FCI and Madison Management do as well.