What are the economic prospects of this small town?

Absentee Homeowners with Equity is most popular, but you might consider one of the other alternatives such as Seniors with High Equity, Recently Divorced and Homeowners with Low Economic Stability Scores.Be sure that the list you get has been put through National Change of Address (NCOA) and CASS.

I am not looking to get super rich but to create a secondary income and maybe have an asset that appreciates in value as time goes by.I have been looking at the local market for over 3 years and know the prices inside out but since this is my first property I took too long to pull the trigger and prices have risen drastically in the past 2 years... more than 50% believe it or not.The country I live in has experienced a sudden economical growth and is looking at an increase in population in the next few years(by 2x)... so prospects are looking good for investment but at the same time the property prices have reached such heights as to not be reachable by most people and the infrastructure also seems to be at it's limit.

PVC windows are probably going to be your most economical, up front.

The same problem applies to people who make doomsday threads. it's important to clarify the economic repercussions you are speaking of, "crash" can mean something different to everyone.  

With a growing company, my role is CEO these days so I'm building a training set of materials for my Project Coordinators and Construction crews since I'm not on site much at all these days to give this type of guidance in person to our crews.I'm finding a lot of good info. on Bigger Pockets and elsewhere about finding and hiring good contractors, managing contracts and scope of work etc.What I'm not finding are articles about the economical & profit focused mind set need for good day to day decision making by the crews and foreman on site.  

We started during the current economic upswing (2014) so we have not seen a major downturn yet.  

Do they have to verify they have health insurance , is there something they sign that protects you legally or anything? 

I'm looking for something closer to 3-4 units so I can try to make the economics work.

Also consider that you did this in the best economic market you could possibly have.