Population, location to major cities and transportation  are good starting points.Good luck

It is also close to the suburbs and easily assessable by public transportation. 

Send them a hand written thank you card and enclose small a gift card that earns you points when you buy it or benefits a charity YOU support.

The SF market does get pretty competitive, so most of our clients that can't get into SF shift their lenses to West Oakland/Alameda area which is relatively close to San Francisco driving via the bridge and a few Bart stops away via public transportation. 

Maybe there is an enclosed porch that you can "easily" turn into a 4th BR.There are a ton of great deals, if you're willing to put in the work.

With that in mind, I would want to invest in an area where the local economy is as diverse as possible as there's a greater chance of buffered impacts to employment. 2) Transportation - the trend is away from people not owning their own cars.

If you can locate a house with a decent size lot 7000square ft or more and within a mile of public transportation you can forgo adding more public parking per unit.

These expenses include, a new roof ($4,500), a paved driveway/parking ($3,000) a privacy fence to enclose the full property ($1,100), and I have been recently toying with the idea of digging out the unfinished basement and converting it into a 4th bedroom, storage, and a den which will cost around ($10,000).

The property is adjacent to Arrowhead Towne Center in Phoenix, near shopping, restaurants, transportation corridors, corporate headquarters, three hospitals, sports venues (MLB spring training, State Farm Stadium, others), and snowbird housing from Oct-Mar. 

But our back yard is not enclosed and joins other property as the tennis courts are behind our townhouse.