Hello BP Members,I reside in San Gabriel Valley in california, about 15 minutes east of downtown LA.There is a good decent sized apartment complex not to far from where i live, i drive by there quite often, its on a corner lot right in the middle of EVERYTHING in a decent part of town!

I have spent the last 20 years living in Los Angeles and NYC, but am interested in exploring a much more diverse list of potential cities for "early retirement" (i.e. a place to live when I no longer require traditional employment). 

If you want to invest in small town New Zealand your primary driver needs to be employment and population growth.

So from a tax rate perspective, let's round off to 15% Fed, 5% state and 15% FICA (self employed pay both sides of it).

If you have a 457 plan with past employer - you can roll it over into self-directed IRA.

So I suspect it really varies by area asset class size etc etc..

What size property are you looking for?

More years of experience will surely strenghten my ability to evaluate tenants, property managers, contractors, and other business players.As far as the location of the propery itself, I judged the location by it's proximity to employment areas as well as general feel of the place.

Or something like a major employer closing up shop. 

I don't believe that I would actually walk away at that point as there are other benefits to remaining with my current employer for several more years.