Is it demographics (new households) or new business formation?

I saw a huge pile of trash & household items by the curb which I dared to believe meant that the PO vacated.  

However, we truly have more house holds than housing and that's getting worse by the year.

We didn’t like those markets mostly due to the crime index being well over 500 in each location and relatively low appreciation over the last 20 years.We came down to Killeen, Phoenix, and Boise as (for right now) our top 3 markets based on a variety of stats but mainly population growth, household income, and home value growth.Our next step is now reaching out to agents in those locations and running analysis on a variety of multi family properties in those locations to try to find a good deal to start making offers.Would love to hear your opinion if those are good logical next steps and any ideas/thought you may have here.Our goal is to purchase our first rental property in this quarter (Q4 of 2021)!

I currently bring in 60% of the household income but after my nearly 30% tax bill my partner (1099) brings in just about the same.

I’m just curious on how some of you pros would start out if you had a stable dual income household $135k/yr, a 3 month emergency fund, and 15k saved up.

Crime is my number one indicator on most homes, but I also look at Median Household Income, Education Level, and Percentage of Home Ownership as well as they drive many of the factors for desirability and appreciation.Second place to look will be Zillow, Homesnap, and/or Rentometer to get an idea of the rental markets (if you're investing in rentals.)

If they are only lending at 75% LTV like most banks on investment property and staring at 76 million folks nationwide in their 20s that haven't formed households yet....are you kidding? 

A lot of tenants have them and they aren't in 99.9% of American households like a fridge is.  

A million dollars in the bank generated $40 thousand a year of interest income, which was 10X the $4 thousand annual median household income of that era.