Together with my wife, we are currently house hacking our first home in Brooklyn, NY but it will be some time before we get going on a true Investment Property.I work as a Real Estate Analyst for a Non-Profit company in NY so I have a few tricks when analyzing and reporting RE data.

I found out what I could afford, where, met a Realtor, and within a couple of weeks made an offer.Looking back, I wish I'd have known more about deal analysis than I did when I put in that offer, but if you want to ride the ride, you've gotta buy a ticket.

I can see some availability data on Airbnb for long-term stays but it's hard to tell what kind of demand there is for this. 

Where can people find data? 

@Carlos Martinez- 1) if you have  no property yet and  are trying to get pre approved - and  trying to decide on a lender to use for this - you DO NOT  need to have the  credit pulled  yet  2) contact whatever lenders  you want on the same day and  provide the same  criteria  ( price / loan amt / credit score/ loan program ) and  ask  for   quotes  from them   and  any other  questions you have  3)   if any are not willing or able to  provide quotes - take them off your list  4) make a  decsion on one lender from the feedback  received and proceed with the one  lender for the  formal  pre approval and  have them pull the  formal  tro merge  credit report  and provide them with all your data ( paystubs / bank statements  / w2s  etc ....)   5) once pre approved -  begin to aggresively  house  hunt  6) when a  property is  found and you get into contract - you can  cost compare the lender  you are  pre approved with  with any  other lender and make final decision to proceed with rate lock with the lender you choose 

Rentometer is one data point for rents.

I'm a software/data engineer with a background in finance and business development.

Thanks for correcting me -- that's good information -- my last 'data point' for Virginia was when we closed on our primary residence in 2019! 

Is there any data about what's the better investment route?

The Real Estate Guys podcast normally touches on trends and national news as well.For local updates, lots of stats are available monthly from MLS data - typically published monthly by brokerages and MLS aggregator sites.