Abraham,Appreciate your input, I'm currently doing more market research, and it looks like Stockton might actually lead job-growth in CA this year. (1)I'm still new to the game, and use cap rate  w / debt service, because comparing COCR is sensitive to the DownPayment / financing, whereas CAP / w debt is much less so, even though it breaks the definition.Is there a better metric, or maybe the mechanics of its use is still not 100% for me, would appreciate any feedback.With some of these COCR returns, you could break even in 3 years, granting an infinity return after that. 

Some cities have a much higher percentage of owners versus renters and this has a big impact on the vacancy and available unit metrics. 

You should search the forum for the following threads to get a good feel for metrics that folks use:"2% rule""CAP rate""GRM"

So, here is the story: I read a book called Timing the Real Estate Market and the author gives a mathematical approach to timing the market that uses 5 metrics and moving twelve month averages to keep track of what the trends are.

From what I have been reading on here, cash flow does seem like one of the most critical metrics when doing buy and hold.

Reviews, number of transactions, and experience are very important metrics that you can easily check here on BP or other sites like Zillow, google, etc.

They have certain metrics they need to meet.

I know following the numbers and letting them make sense is an important factor.My main metric is CoC return, just simple, how much is left after all the expenses.

This is the only metric I care about. 

Our current strategy is AirBnB vacation rentals and my metric for entry into a property is to average $1000 per door per month profit, and so far we’ve been able to that on 5 units, one of which is a duplex that we House Hack.