I'd say it all depends on your objective.

It gives me a good idea as to what the owner's objections to selling or even speaking to me might be.  

If everything is full or at close to 85% etc. then maybe the demand is there for the market to absorb more new construction.Sounds like you need a local land broker specialist to do an opinion of value.

How can I accomplish my objective?

Now I'm an IT specialist working for the government.

Before you meet with them, outline your near, mid and longterm objectives for your investment in the U.S.A., the spend a few hundred dollars to structure your investing in a manner which makes the most sense for your plans (i.e. not everyone needs a Canadian corporation to own a U.S.A. subsidiary for investing, but pending on your income and other assets, it may make sense.  

Checkout the information I left earlier, you may want to use some of the information to ask and prepare questions for the specialist you encounter.

In your window issue, I believe the gap can only be verified by a foundation specialist, whether the foundation has moved, or the caulking has shrunk (rarely happens, almost never), if you're just checking, a simple verification is, if other windows doesn't have the same problem, it might be just the window, if windows have gaps in a vertical/horizontal position, then the building has settled, you couldn't do this if only one floor of window has been changed at the same time, then you're back to the foundation specialist.With regards to building, I believe that as a builder, you're not limited to "bare minimum", if the building's safety factor is 2.5, you could always raise it.

You must need over $5,000 in repairs and they must be over seen by a contractor and if over $35K in repairs there is a loan specialist that works with the contractor.

The thinking behind the latter approach is that renovation specialists are historically more likely to screw up the regular mortgage stuff (my firm does this but I'm not licensed in NJ, so don't PM me for this :P ).