Is it driven by higher rents in that market or what's the underlying factor from what you have seen?  

Those that use PM's have pointed out that there is a cost factor of also having to manage your PM as well - following up behind them, making sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, etc.Hope it helps!

What factors lead to this decision?

In his experience, Memphis’s higher-than-typical rent-to-price ratio sounded great in theory, but property management turned out to be a huge factor-especially if you’re not local.

Need to be sure you include the "unknown budget" and never take the optimistic approach as it is better to have money left at the end than writing more and more checks that were unplanned for.Again, if you can walk through an actual property and compare notes with someone that does it in your area (key factor), you will be way ahead of what a generic book can give you.

See the chart from Fair Isaac Company (FICO) below: FICO Score Pct of Population Default Probability 800 or more 13.00% 1.00% 750-799 27.00% 1.00% 700-749 18.00% 4.40% 650-699 15.00% 8.90% 600-649 12.00% 15.80% 550-599 8.00% 22.50% 500-549 5.00% 28.40% Less than 499 2.00% 41.00% Source: Fair Isaac CompanyAccording to this chart, investors should use corresponding vacancy+tenant-nonperformance factors of approximately 5% for Class A rentals, 10% for Class B and 20% for Class C.To address Class C payment challenges, many industry "experts" are now selling programs to newbie investors about how Section 8 tenants are the cure.

This focus gives you a national reach, and that oh-so-important factor; scalability. 

Look into any and all factors you can think of regarding those areas so that if/when you decide to research other markets, you know what information to look for. 

Try to be positive and understanding since there were lots of factors that led to delays.

Our pro forma for the self storage property we built was rock solid until we opened the business and a year later I was facing losing everything because of all sorts of factors beyond my control.