Sometimes its economics and other times its physical or a combination of both.

Owner occupancy requirements are one year.With all notes, the occupancy requirement is waived when unforeseen events occur such as death, divorce, economic changes or things beyond the control of a borrower that cause a hardship.

Some economic like inflation : if everyones insurance and utilities go up 30%, it is only a matter of time until it hits rents. 

General Business:In any business, price is driven by economic factors of value, RE is no different.

I don't know if they bring in paid, sell your crap at the back of the room and Saturday paid session B.S. speakers, but it was a real pleasure to get to attend a REIA where the attendees were mostly active investors, they looked to genuinely like being there and the content shared by the three different groups that night was heavy on content and light on fluff.Kathleen Kramer did an excellent job going over economic data.  

I have been investing a bit in the USA as the economics in many US markets make so much more sense in terms of investing than they do here at home.

(more economical option that I could do within this 3.5 week time)2.

(And then, if you were going to go long distance anyway, I'd say you might want to pick an area with better economic fundamentals than RI.)Also as Colleen alluded, it helps if you have some other reason to be in RI besides only a property or two.

But food is one area where we don't try to do too much economizing.

Eastern European political & economic issues.