From a pure investment standpoint, there's not a huge benefit to one of these areas over the other.

The rustbelt is a pure cashflow play.  

Can you folks suggest which of these cities would make a better investment if I am looking purely for good rental cash flow ?

Alternatively, mind if I propose:Option 4: Keep renting & buy a pure investment property (Airbnb)I did a combined house hack / Airbnb, but with interest rates where they're at, you might not even save that much with a house hack, so you may be better off just optimizing for a pure investment property instead.

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The intrinsic value usually plays a big part in their final decision more so than pure investment decisions.

From my standpoint, coming from the pure development world, I have gone through an evolution of finding and managing land deals:Phase 1 - early years, every site that was available, was a deal that could "work" if we tried hard enough to work the deal, this includes sellers who were a "no", and it included sites that were vacant in the middle of a built out neighborhood.

Pure coincidence!

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