There are many things to look at when choosing a market. 

I'm starting to understand how choosing a niche is very important.

These tend to be some of the safer neighborhoods and where many students and young professionals choose to live.

We have many Doctors, Dentists and others professionals in our investor club that are all similarly challenged with time so choose to invest in syndications.  

You don't get to choose if or when you depreciate your income producing assets.Any mortgage underwriter worth their paycheck knows that they would add the depreciation back in to get the real profits of the rental, so that should not come into play at all.

Build a list and choose what works for you.

So you can choose to only live with male roommates with no children if you'd prefer. 

Most larger markets have a bunch of submarkets anyways so once you do choose a market you can do more in-depth, boots-on-the-ground analysis to find out which submarket works best for your strategy.Hope this helps and please feel free to reach out to me anytime if you have questions or just want to chat!

Older Empty nesters with kids gone, young folks, and people not wanting bad commutes are still choosing cities to live in.

Then ask how many vacant units there are to choose from.