I like the idea of the Lehigh Valley because its relatively close to me and I think the city is trying to do a lot to spur job growth. 

The fundamentals I have seen for IE seem to point to long term growth.

Seems like a desirable place to live, with strong growth potential as well.

Run the house hacking idea by your wife and see if she's up for the task.  

I've gone rounds on this decision however because of the exact reasons you are looking to invest there- the market there has been and is primed for continual growth and expansion.  

I'm currently tasked with revising the management structure there.

The idea is promising and I would suggest an area where growth is happening or attractive to the military population.  

Q2: When you do CoC calculation, especially for the next 10+ years, you omit growth in equity (property appreciation + reduction in loan balance).

This seems logical if you look at a few years, but after >= 10 years, it seems wrong to ignore the effect of appreciation.Some areas exhibit more growth then others, so it seems there should be a more complete metric.A real-estate investment professional has showed me (among other things) the metric which was named "Cash on cash with equity build-up".

We're growing (and smaller) and I'm just trying to make sure we have explored all of our available options for growth.