EST Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in November indicates that the labor market has continued to strengthen and that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace since mid-year.

Pueblo is popular with investors but property hasn't really appreciated there in the past 5 years - you would need to force appreciation by buying a distressed home and fixing it up.The smaller towns are hit or miss.  

Northside of Jax  near the airport is becoming popular.

Some are landlord friendly, some are landlord hostile, the federal framework in practice allows for both.

I started using Tellus last summer and thought it was great since it posted my listing to all the popular rental websites, the screening process via Naborly was free, and their support was very quick - they often responded within minutes to a few hours.

Where we do survey always is when I was in the Timber business.. we always ran cut lines.. the old method was to use BLAZE's .. but you cut a tree that's not yours and its triple stumpage and if its federal timber its a federal bust... many a logger have seen jail time for stealing FED timber.

Apparently Wells Fargo is the most popular bank to use for this.  

Try DFCU - Dearborn Federal Credit Union They also give 1% cash back on your total mortgage amount and have very competitive rates

The cities you mentioned seem to be fairly popular among out of state and foreign investors.

However, my concern is this is a very "trendy" concept and will likely fall out of popularity.