I grew up in Houston but have been living in Austin the past 5 years (minus a 2 year expat assignment in Singapore).

It is possible to purchase properties in la belle province, or the rest of Canada, with little down payment, but such opportunities will be few and far - particularly in the larger urban centres - and you won't be finding them on the MLS.While one may have little money starting out, naturally one will have little experience.  

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21647622-land-centre-pre-industrial-economy-has-returned-constraint-growth

Hey Jesse, I definitely don't have the answers for you but I would recommend talking to Tom Thurmeier at the Small Business Legal Centre here in Calgary. 403-269-7252 He has actually taught classes to real estate investors on this subject. 

California, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, London capital appreciation isn't that hard to spot or compute if you know the market.Personally, I don't see capital appreciation to be more or less complicated to compute than rent appreciation.

Yes it does need work but one thing I noticed traveling China, Hong Kong, Singapore is they all have a huge infrastructure to support moving people around and that is key for growth!

Second, they are no longer allowing Singapore Air Force personnel to occupy houses on base, pushing them back to off base rentals. 

His firm is called Small Business Legal Centre. 

Indeed, Salem has definitely been quite a popular pick here given its easier entry point and the nature of its location (I've also chosen it myself for these reasons a couple years back), but also in general the whole stretch that you mentioned has definitely been benefitting from the northward migration from more metropolitan centres like Boston.

I am from Singapore who is interested in real estate.