When this home was purchased (early 2007), neighborhood was nice and on the rise.  

With the huge surge of interest in real estate investing by new and experienced investors, the return of home buyers to market and the resulting rise in prices I was curious to see what the community thought were today’s underutilized strategies and areas (cities, towns, states even blocks) that could be interesting in the next 6 months and are not yet popular enough to be something most people know about and are thus using thereby driving up prices as well as reducing supply. 

Inflation is about 3% and so when you have millions if you live conservatively you tend to have more than you need.         

Price is rising and at one point, it's smarter to sell (even if you leave some money on the table) vs. go through another real estate market crash.

I understand that Calgary is at risk of having its housing bubble burst (which could go in my favor) due to falling oil prices and rising unemployment (may also be good to pick up some distressed property owners!)

This is key since it removes most if not at least 80% of the risk immediately.Cost of obtaining + UPB of the first must be less then BPO or what you find on Zillow.So considering those first two, if we believe we have an property in an area that will rise in price and/or foreclosing will result in a positive outcome. 

Honestly, I'm not sure how much longer my wife and I will be here (looks like my job might be taking me away), so I'm not sure how much actual investing (if any) we are going to to get to do here, but one of the big problems we have been running into is the inflated market.  

They know that the stock market is considered to be a "gamble" and a rise/fall does not affect their overseas real estate decision making. 

Can your family income withstand any shocks (say, 2 months of vacancy, or, a new roof, interest rates rising to say 5%, or something similar).

The map found on the link below shows where rents are rising and failing the fastest in the USA.