The key for us is positive population growth.

With oil prices down and population numbers slowly going down and or spreading to other parts of the state lenders are being tight on their loan requirements.

I often thoght that Florida is a good place to be because of its diversity and population growth.  

I have no experience, but if you are looking for rentals within an hour or so of Boone there are a number of other towns to consider.Hickory, Morganton, & Statesville all have decent sized populations.  

The population is a little low.  

There are many support personnel, in addition to the regular population of the area, so our tenant base has been vibrant.  

@Curtis Waters Good advice. lots of people to network with when attending local meet ups@Carlos Diaz The Queen City ranks No. 2 among the country's 25 largest cities for population growth between 2010 and 2013 charlotte market is BOOMTOWN!

Downtown SF has very high per capital crime rates because of the high transient population (visitors) vs the actual residents included in the per capita statistics, so I feel perfectly safe walking through there.

Capture rates for your sphere of influence are infinitely higher than any other segment of the population.

One word:   OverbuildingHere are some stats and data to back up this observation: Size of US vs Canada economy - 9X (GDP per capita roughly equal at ~$53K)Canada's Population - 36M (2015)US Population - 323M (2015)Population Growth Canada - 308,000 or 0.9% (2015)Population Growth US - 2,345,000 or 0.73% (2016)Average Persons/household, Canada = 2.5Average Persons/household, US = 2.5Average annualized housing starts over past year, Canada - 197,000Average annualized housing starts over past year, US - 1.13MBased on above data, it seems that Canada needs a new supply of approximately 123K (308,000/2.5)  housing units per year to sustain the population growth.