My partner and I started out renting in the city center to test the waters. We quickly realized we were just throwing money away because local rental rates are pretty high. Property prices are still low enough that your mortgage or cash investment builds equity fast. We looked at a bunch of market data on Eva-Estate https://www.eva-estate.com/ and decided to buy an apartment instead. It was the best choice we made. Now we have a permanent vacation home, and we can easily rent it out to tourists whenever we travel back to the States.