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

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.

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. 

(MLS and Listsource.com are tools you can use to see what is happening in these submarkets as far as corporate transactions (LLC), rental inventory, zip code stats etc. and which market has inventory and market metrics that fits your criteria)Do your own marketing. 

Case in point rates have never been at 2% as quoted, just under 3% was the lowest.The only metrics that really matter when you try to look for a housing bubble are affordability (still excellent in my market, yellow flags on the west coast) and inventory (all time low).Supply and demand are the basic drivers, and yes higher rates should cool off the market.

If you are looking at SFR's, financial metrics like CAP rate are important, but they are not a determinant of value.

@Michael Kim there was not a guarantee made by @Joe Fairless, fast forward to 1:01:52 of the show 227 youtube here is the question:Brandon Turner:Last question I got before maybe we move onto the fire round is like what do you look for in terms of these deals for metrics, like are you, if anything just you know makes you a certain amount per month or a certain overall return for your investors, an Internal Rate of Return (IRR), or how do you look at that?

When these metrics look better than the market norms you know that you have a good deal. 

There's very good Excel sheets available on BP where you can plug in your numbers to understand all the key metrics like Cap Rate, Cash-on-Cash, IRR etc.

Yep, same thing here with the security guards in the 80's....lol.In a number crunch of 300 cities using 10 metrics ranging from home prices to tax rates to vacancy levels, WalletHub determined that Montgomery, Alabama, was the nation’s most affordable city for homebuyers.