this is highly regional ... for those responding that live in markets with no real historic appreciation or values have actually fallen since the peaks of the 90s.. there is no reason to buy anything that does not cash flow.. who wants the risk and stress of landlording if there is no real appreciation upside.as to Steve's comments on IRR that to me is the metric.. i have bought almost all my west coast properties that were break even to negative and once i exit.. the IRR far exceeds anything i could have gotten with a non appreciating " cash flow property".. 

Hello and good morning Biggerpockets users, I am located in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, specifically Williamsburg.

We typically are targeting growing markets in those regions. 

hey jordan, i'm from st. louis originally and got lured back last year after a couple years in toronto. my wife and i are new to investing, close on our first property (a little sfr in the shaw neighborhood) in a couple weeks. we're in the same ballpark you are in terms of targets. we've been monitoring duplexes pretty closely for a couple months now, and it seems the market for multi-families in the neighborhoods you're hearing about (tower grove south, tower grove east, fox park) is very competitive. university city and clayton might also be areas to consider (near washington university and on our train line). i'm a newbie to investing but an olbie when it comes to stl, so i'm happy to answer questions you've got to the best of my ability. 

While I am still learning, I plan on attending local REI meet ups in the South Florida region so I can get to know like minded individuals who share the same goals in real estate investing.  

They literally can ebb and flow from one street to the next in a city or region.2. 

It sits pretty well on regional transportation hubs (intersection of I-35 and I-80) but more importantly has that 'nexus' feel looking out the next 20-40 years where I can see how Ames/Ankeny sit relative to the DSM area doing a bit like what's going on down on the I-4 corridor in Central Florida. 

I`d Like to hear what fellow Ontario residents think are the next good cities and regions to invest in. 

@Jon Klaus  Jon as we know this is all regional I am always amazed at how cost effective your builds are in Texas I have a 2.2 mil spec going in Charleston 2600 sq ftt and that's going to come out at 300 a foot. not including the lot of course.. which was 570k. in this instance no pilings but we did elevator 20k .. what does it in the historic district of Charleston is all the custom items you have to buy siding roof windows architecture 60k in hard scape landsape on a 4k sq ft lot.. that type of thing. when we are out of the BAR heavy duty areas we are building at 100 a foot or so.. 

Shop around to local/regional banks and credit unions.