Investing in real estate is complex enough from afar, but add in currency moves, political corruption, economies tied to vary narrow industries (export oriented / commodity based), language, unique laws, regulations, taxes, etc, why endure that headache.I've written about this before and won't go into a ton of details but I traveled to many LatAm countries working for Dell and like you, saw opportunities.  

and Parker - Did you by chance mean a rug and a hug?

They both get a tremendous amount of blame for that (though Obama gets all the current blame), and I have a feeling the next President or two will continue to sweep the real economic issues under the rug -- nobody seems to want to make the hard decisions that involve purposefully keeping us in a recession for a long time in order to fix the underlying economic issues.Gotta run...have to get my nanny to turn off Fox News...don't want to be an accessory to funding terrorism!

I come from a family who has always been business oriented but struggled to get far.

The rugs had not been moved or cleaned.

I think it will take a few years after businesses start to move there (most of these don't seem very retail-oriented, at least at their Portland location) before the areas' population demographics start to improve enough for a residential investment.

I agree with @Chad Clanton in regards to having a proposed, concrete business plan may keep you from excellent unforeseen opportunity.Account Closed  Nonetheless, I find it important to have a goal oriented plan.

I am very system oriented in business so any other investors that use good systems to work their business (instead of their business owning them) please pass on advise.

These are typically investments for rental oriented investors.I must tell you that I am not a very experienced investor.

Those two things are prompting us to find a more cash flow oriented solution that leverages our real estate experience.