Obviously having a market where the price to rent ratio is favorable but what other metrics (or non-hard data) should I be looking for?

By managing myself I can obtain 50% lower vacancy, 30% lower turn cost and 50% lower management fees (I pay myself 5%), thus lowering my expenses by a metric boat load (technical term) as compared to hiring a 3rd party company to manage for me. 

I will discuss income reliability in another post.Location Selection RequirementsBelow are the location requirements we previously determined, along with the metrics.

Lindekugel - residential housing inventory was definitly overbuilt between 2000 and 2007 by every possible metric, housing starts, vacant inventory, inventory under construction, and months of supply.

At each decision point, there are clear metrics, so you know you are making the right decision.

I've asked if they track demand per city, or any other metrics. 

I've seen cap rate used as a metric for comparing different potential purchases apples-to-apples as you say, independent of the financing terms (which would affect COC but not cap rate, if I'm not mistaken).

Especially think comments like sharing first and "this is what I do" - very much an abundance mentality.Good idea about door hangars … I have door hangars aimed at Auc and PF, but have yet to find the time to accomplish this task so the metric of how well works is ... as expected not so good.I have done all the marketing about 2X/month since 10/2015.

That being said it must have worked out for that realtor as he now has 6-12 listings for 10+ acre parcels.I get a metric ton of these cards/letters and I'd guess like 80% of them are just complete lies. 

Apologies, I misunderstood the metrics the websites used.