@Scott Long I had something similar to this last year to my cpa. though mine had to do with a house we have in china, and if I would be able to write off travel between here and there if we were going to inspect the property or take care of business related to it that might require use there (china it seems a lot of things require you to physically show up).

A lot of that is due to the high US Dollar so Canada seems like a bit of a fire sale to a lot of Americans...and Mainland Chinese who are trying to get their money out of China.

I gotten quite a few inquires about building in Greenville from Folks in China ( through Hong Kong )as the EB5 seems to be very big as you say for the industrial manufacturing sector.Alex

If you did not need a license then there would be no Real Estate industry and it would be like China no license required and a free for all.these laws are on the books of virtually all states it just depends if the states want to spend their time and money enforcing them... and with sites like this one ( BP) were a large majority of the posts from newer folks in the industry go like this."

Right now China's in freefall, Europe's on fire, oil producers the globe over are on fire, and U.S. 

Need I mention China or the stock market...Not saying the sky is falling but I'd start looking at things very differently right now until we get signs that things are getting worse or going to get better, this is a very pivotal time and mid 2016 might not end up where we are hoping and high levels of exposure through leverage is not going to be where I would want to be.

I had to skip trace the owner all the way to China, wait for them to come back to the US, close the deal and negotiated with the bank to reduce the balance of the loan from $419,000 to $106,000HERE ARE THE DETAILS ARV

Be it high prices, high interest rates, low appreciation, China, or whatever.If you can find a property now that you can add value to and/or will cash flow then I say buy it now.

Globally, China is experiencing its own credit problems in the housing industry and it also has excess inventory.

What concerns me is China.