Your decision is dependent upon your experience, your network of support, and what type of life you want to live.

While I am a huge fan of 1031 exchanges and many of my clients use them, @Corby Goade has a strong point on keep the cash flowing property in Portland. 

That's a great path to growth.A few things that may be helpful to you here on the Bigger Pockets website as you search for a team to support your first buy:You can set up keyword alerts so anytime someone posts about the market or specific neighborhoods you're exploring, you'll be notified.

So just because the appraisal supports your price, doesn't mean you could resell for that the next day. 

My clients are focused in Toronto/West GTA.

As we were discussing, she told me about her client who was fed up being a landlord and wanted to just offload her property.

Anything smaller and the apartment cant support it.

Running my numbers on the refinance, here is what I think I was seeing (and please feel free to comment on any of the assumptions I used, as I don't have a lot of data to support my estimates).Appraised value estimated to be $141,000, and knowing I can finance up to 80% of that, I could realistic pull out up to $112,800. 

I have a couple clients down that way that looking at the same thing. 

I will add that while neither was purchased with the knowledge and full analysis of being an income producing property, the area is strong enough to support the homes as such, and we will even be able to have a (very) small cash flow within the first year.