Determining which cities are experiencing job growth, job diversification, rent growth and population growth can help provide some filters.

Columbus, Oh continues to develop and grow and has seen growth in job growth but more importantly job diversification.

As alluded to above Winston-Salem and Greensboro are somewhat local metros to you that have performed well and look poised to continue as the southeast continues to experience; population growth, job growth, rent growth and job diversification.

I know many investors like to be 'all in' in some form of investing, be it equities, real estate, crypto, gold, etc, but personally, I think that diversification is critical to protecting your assets.

Out-of-state investing does present unique challenges but also provides the valuable benefit of portfolio diversification. 

Think of it as diversification.

Diversification of portfolio.

National data has the benefit of diversification.

NC, GA, FL and TX have seen growth in major metrics like rent, population, income, job and job diversification.

Items like population growth, rent growth, income growth, job growth and job diversification can help in the early stages of due diligence.