I have been looking for my first rental property deal in Eastern Iowa (Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, etc) for the past several months and so far have come up dry. 

Guys please let me know if you can share anything about Iowa City, Cedar Rapids & Davenport areas.

I'd give the most weight to word of mouth referrals from investors you trust and online reviews (specifically Bigger Pockets references which are the easiest to verify since they're linked to the reviewers profile).

With the rapidly changing laws, only an experienced lawyer will know how to navigate through them and get you the best possible outcome.

It is a busy and rapid pace that was hard for me to keep track of the first few times I went with my friend.

Seller’s agents love speed and with a buyer that is fully approved your offers will hold much more weight.

The city is experiencing rapid growth and has a strong rental demand, which makes it a great place to invest in multi-family properties or commercial real estate.Another option to consider is investing in real estate crowdfunding platforms, which allow you to invest in a diversified portfolio of properties across multiple markets.

Buyers/new owner would have to pray for rapid appreciation in order to take equity out to remodel the home, pay for kids education, start a business, etc.

That would imply a rapidly increasing population to that particular part of the city with a flat or diminishing amount of SFHs.  

While they might look like cash flow kings, the cash flow is often diminished greatly due to repairs and lack of payment by tenants.When you look at areas, the classifications are very similar, with the same A, B, C, and D area class as follows:A – newer growth areasB – older, stable areasC – older, declining, or stable areasD – older, declining, potentially rapidly declining areas”