Houston added the most jobs in the US in 2018 and consistently adds population at double the national growth rate.   

I am in the process of narrowing down markets which not only cash-flow positive (1% rule), but also markets which try to adhere to the 7 factors for successful investing; such as population and job growth, diversified economy, landlord and business friendly and in a rising market, therefore giving appreciation potential (and yes I know thats basically like winning the lotto but if I can even cover most of the those factors then I will be happy).

Growing market, growing incomes, growing population, high income earners.Buying here regardless is typically going to yield good results.

.” – NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association “The boom in e-commerce has created significant demand for new industrial space, often in markets based on population and Internet usage, rather than store replenishment.” – NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association“Staying ahead of—trends such as autonomous vehicles, predictive analytics, and robotics.” – An interviewee on the PWC 2019 Trends ReportE-commerce, “only made up 11% of the total industrial transactions signed in the past 12 months.”

Stop benchmarking yourself against other people your age, or the general population at all as most will always be working and spending all they earn.What market are you in? 

Is the Census a good resource to use for macro trends in population growth?

no...I use Investor Carrot because they are really nice people, helpful and their customer service is fantastic.As conceited as this may sound on my end, I feel like I have WAY outgrown  their SEO skills and knowledge, hence I deleted all the content on the site and did it all myself.I just use them for their hosting speed, and the blogs they populate my site with.All the leads I am getting is because I come up with my own SEO strategies.

Though the park is in high population MSA and a good location I decided to walk away.

We have strong demand, high incomes, high population growth, high income growth, and our market trades at less than 5 times household income, making it one of the most affordable large markets in the country. 

Quality of the marketStable job growth, population growth and expected rent growth => lower cap rate.Negative job growth, population growth and expected rent growth => higher cap rate.2.