Hi Jeff, I can't tell what Socal city you're from.

Seems like the city appraisal's are the foundation for seller price points.

I am comparing opportunities in my home country with opportunities in the USA and I believe the latter offers more in terms of risk/rewards.Example in Belgium:In a median city you can buy a decent small apartment (700 sq feet) for ± 280.000 EUR (+ 10% costs and registration rights) = 308.000 EUR (=$358.820).

I'm moving into a lower income neighborhood where there are corner stores in between houses and folks sitting on their stoop during working hours, and the crime is lower there than the city I live in with 500K homes and horse farms.

Currently I’ve been having my interest in Kansas City. 

As new apartments open across the city in record numbers, vacancy rates have grown, rents have stopped rising and landlords are offering an increasing number of freebies to get tenants in the door.For years, the Seattle rental market was so heated that renters would constantly monitor online listings and quickly show up to available apartments with checkbooks and references in hand.

If you do all the repairs at once, city hall might require more costly repairs than you expected.

Your most important asset when investing in rental properties in other cities will be your property manager.

I'm currently looking at cities back east like Pittsburgh which has a great market for rentals and seems to be a city on the rise!

Before I start this discussion, I wanted to post the link to the Article with the title "Population migration patterns: US cities Americans are abandoning" but don't go to the link YET.