The MLS gets pretty picked over, pretty fast.

Metro Detroit - this is really what most investors conceptualize when picking a market.

I feel that Redlands is an up and growing city with lots of potentials and still has room for investors.I'm in the process of picking up a SFH with half  an acre lot.

Finally, start hitting some meetups if you can to pick people's brains, find potential deals, learn what about areas you don't know, etc.Best of luck!

If you find a place that will cash flow at a 200k budget on long term rents in Houston, I promise you that you do not want to own in that neighborhood AND it probably does not actually cash flow due to the class of tenant, capex, vacancy, and turnover costs.I'd suggest you try to find some connection to a place rather than randomly picking a market.

You can spend no time and risk little and get an easy 8% return (pick a turn key and go).  

But real wealth comes from long-term buy-and-hold, and if you hold this for 20 years, the money you'll make then will dwarf that small savings.Plus, at least here in Colorado, the market is picking up.

pick your favorite. 

Last year my largest holding FDUS, paid 13.6% dividend and stock also went up 8-9 %, as long as 10 yr flat to rising they make money on their large net interest margin spreads.if you ok with moderate risk, pick good REITS, as a group VNQ they beat sp500 last 20 and 50 yrs by about 1.5-2.0%, and they beat private real estate investors by 2-4% in academic studies as well, that's an average, that doesn't mean REITS outperform the excellent investors here at BP :)Or take out a margin loan and YOLO Bitcoin, no don't do that!

While I don't believe you should pick a lender based solely on interest rate, that is an important factor in evaluating cash flow when you're talking about house hacking.