What we do know, and can measure right now, is an increasing demand for housing that is not able to keep up with the population trends. 

But as I stated many years ago when I was on the BP Podcast, that the biggest mistake investors make is an inability to properly understand and measure risk, and thus they deploy their capital into assets that do not match their personal risk tolerance. 

This measures the return on investment for a rental property, taking into account both rental income and expenses.Price-to-Rent Ratio: This is another metric that can help you evaluate the potential profitability of rental properties.

BUying property anywhere in US is not gambling as verything is open, how many people is buying/selling, job availability, there's nothing gambling in real estate as market is extremely transparent.To count future appreciation one could just measure the supply and buying demand,as simple as that. 

Passivity, liquidity, risk measures, etc.

And like all states we do have a system to fight your taxes but for the most part the local towns have spent a LOT of money and time over the past 10 years making sure that existing building measurements and building materials inside homes are accurate so there’s really not much wiggle room to fight your taxes.

Now I love me some SEC college football but if a city's economy can be measurably hurt by missing a *single* home SEC football game I'm not wild about the prospect of investing there.

And 36 Other Key Financial Measures" By Frank Gallinelli, which can be found on Amazon.

Can you measure this return specific to what you financial goals are?

Lots of online resources to measure current profitability of STRs by market like AirDNA and others.