Hi Carl,
Welcome to BP. I am a new RE investor as well, but not new to operating a business. As an investor, I believe your are first and foremost a business person, and will need to rely on your available resources and business acumen to be successful. As I cannot offer ideas to you about how good or solvent the RE market is in the areas you suggest, I would mention that a different approach you can take is to use BP to search the membership for investors, agents, brokers, attorneys and other RE professional in the target area, and then pose your same question to them.
Another thing to try is to just go onto one of the RE online sites (like Zillow), search the area, find a local realtor and cold call them. I am studying for my RE license in Colorado now, and have met many local agents doing just that. Not one of them did not respond or offer me some tidbit of suggestion on what I asked.
Good luck!
