[eschaton]

broadly speaking there are going to be good real estate investment choices in almost every core city of a large metropolitan area if you know where to look. Even within what would be the bottom third of the market.

In general though I think being an "absentee investor" - buying property for speculation, flipping, or to rent out - outside of your home metropolitan area is a bad idea if you're an amateur with limited financial resources. You lack the level of market knowledge a local would have, and have to hire third parties to do virtually everything for you - cutting down on any return you might see.