Different states are cycling at various cap rates for retail across the country right now.You need to make sure you will be realistic for market conditions.

Many investors will buy 1031 exchanges at lower cap rates and use vacations to go there as tax write offs.Maybe you find it but Florida is very cap rate compressed for quality retail properties versus other states in the cycle.  

@Patrick Wheeler   As a general rule, this is not a good time in the real estate cycle to buy foreclosures.In Collin County where I live, there is probably more than ten times the amount of money at the auction than would be needed to buy every property that can be sold.If you really want to make money, contact the owners before the auction. 

We need equity to keep the wheels turns on the our debt cycle. 

You're stuck with a liability and this happens all over the country.Besides the drastic stuff that can happen, new investors need to understand the maturity cycle of neighborhoods, new-expanding, to stable, down to mature, to stagnant, to declining to distressed. 

This area is appreciating like crazy- I think are coming up on the crest of the RE cycle, but that's just my opinion. 

This lead me to believe NO was in the expansion cycle.)   

The market works in cycles.

The reasoning behind this is because those who enter hard money loans without clearly planning their exit can often find themselves in a cycle of extending and refinancing hard money loans while trying and failing to qualify for that last step, the conventional loan... if you don't qualify now or in the near future and your end goal is not the resale of the property, you may find yourself spending a ton of money on hard money fees and interest only to be forced to sell and start over in a worse position than you started.

It becomes a vicious cycle: the bank sells their REOs at a discount, pushing the market downwards forcing the banks to sell even lower.Foreclosure filings is NOT the only indicator.