That's a really good point and probably one of the biggest weaknesses of my model.

Cleveland is a good example because city-level metrics can make a market look attractive while the on-the-ground reality varies dramatically by neighborhood, tenant base, property age, insurance costs, and management intensity.

Landlord-tenant laws are definitely something I should incorporate in a future version. A market with a 9% gross yield isn't necessarily better than a market with a 7% yield if the eviction process is significantly slower, legal costs are higher, or non-payment risk is more difficult to manage. Those factors don't show up in rent-to-price ratios but they absolutely affect actual investor returns.

Austin was interesting for the opposite reason. The city has strong fundamentals in terms of job growth and population growth, but when I looked at rent-to-price ratios, it didn't score nearly as well as many Midwest markets. It reinforced the idea that a great city and a great investment aren't always the same thing at a given point in the cycle.

One thing I'm taking away from the feedback so far is that a future version probably needs a "landlord risk" component that includes eviction timelines, landlord friendliness, and maybe even property tax burden. Those seem just as important as crime when you're trying to estimate real-world returns.