being a small time home builder in Portland Market I think you can not worry as much.. prices have stabilized.. market is robust but not over the top.. in migration is still happening.if anything the prices in this market are held up by wacko environmentalist who tend to run this state.they limit the land available for new housing.. causing prices to rise.. its a catch 22 no one wants urban sprawl.. and they have curtailed that.. but that leads to a acute shortage of buildable lands which anytime you have a shortage of something the values rise.. and that's whats happened.

I understand ease of scale with 300+ unit towns of apts, but you may find an exodus of vacancy someday if oversupply and/or unemployment/migration rears their ugly heads @Joe Fairless  

As net migration moves away to retire to warm belt states the cold belt state, counties, and cities generally start taxing at higher rates which puts pressure on remaining businesses there.

The only time you need to physically go to a registry office (at Service NB) is if you are dealing with a property that has not been migrated into the electronic land registry  {if there have been no encumbrances or changes on title since 1996, the property may not be in the registry}.When it comes to permit histories, work orders, ordinance or by-law violations, etc. these are still maintained at the municipal level (in the provinces in which we have operated) and privacy law will necessitate a letter of authorization from the property owner for you to access much of this information  ... the exception being work-order and ordinance/by-law violations which can often be accessed though a right to information request {just do not be in a hurry}.

Affordability is declining (and only gets worse as rates rise while prices continue to rise) and the tech sector seems to be slowing a bit, but migration is still happening and the financial basics of Portland are very strong.  

LOL...that's what we currently have as search criteria, I didn't say that's what we are finding.OH, FL, AZ seem to bubble up for us based on various factors (like landlord friendly states, property tax, sales tax, income tax, population net migration, affordability).That's why the questions: What do you think of that criteria?

Love the FL in general, especially with the migration from high tax states like NY and NJ.

I'm from Rockland County, NY and have slowly started migrating over to Bergen County as a possible investment location.

I am currently a Canadian citizen looking to migrate to the US through an EB-5 investor Visa.    

We may try it and start migrating new tenants that way - I like the concept, and as noted, once the money moves it's pretty much final.