I'm beginning to search for the higher rent concentrated areas around me, ie.

I would concentrate on educating yourself in Real Estate to prepare yourself for the next big opportunities when the next downturn comes. 

Baltimore City is a little rough in the sense of the number of abandoned buildings but I know of a couple of neighborhoods where Investors are concentrating. 

Better yet, put MLS listed properties out of your mind, as any agent will require POF for any offers, concentrate on off market properties.

So would it seem more effective for me to keep growing my portfolio in Louisiana, or concentrate on potential large ROI investments in the Denver market?  

IE they concentrate on it and they are good at it.. and tend to dominatethen you have those starting out and are curious, usually never do a thingthen you have those that try it and some do OK others get an expensive education.I don't know OH foreclosure law like I know other states.. but one thing I have learned is the east coast foreclosure laws are MUCH more complicated than what we have here on the West coast and one needs to be fully up to speed... basically a lawyers knowledge to do this without getting burned.

What are the best areas to concentrate your mailing lists/marketing to?

So that I am not entirely dependent on my 9-5 IT work for a livelihood, and I have more leeway to take a break and concentrate on growing the IT business.Challenges I have been consistently making six figures and I have very high savings and zero debts.  

In all that time I've never seen the kind of deals you need to be successful in this business - but I was never really looking for them.So today I was thinking about whether it would make sense to concentrate on my old neighborhood, where I bought my first house, as a target area.

Don't concentrate on mortgages or try to read the whole file.