Chinese people who practice Feng shui don’t like to buy houses with 4 in the number because 4 is a homonym of death in Chinese.  

@Christopher Smith I agree with you but I do have one sorry Someone close to me right now is being sued for wrongful death for mold in a rental.

So it is an asset that will not have capitol gains taxes during my lifetime or immediately after my death.

It talks about the "ruling principle" (basically, the brain) and the talks about death, I know you probably thinking: how morbid eh?!

(Reference: The idea of pushing someone off a cliff to see if they're a witch would result in either them falling to their death, in which case they're not a witch; or they fly away, in which case they are.

Sometimes if a unit hasn't been turned in 20 years there is some mildew, but we just kilz primer it to death and paint over it. 

I also come from a project management background, so was well aware of the amazing feats that can be accomplished with a competent team.When it was time to invest, I scanned all markets I had any sort of access to, evaluated which other ones I could enter with reasonable safety by utilizing unfamiliar teams on the ground, then crossed that over with potential returns.I'm a pure cashflow investor, never like to speculate, so reliable monthly cashflow was criteria no. 1, followed closely by no. 2 - ease of management and low maintenance, then finally no. 3 - Affordability (which equals hedge and diversity), and last but not least, no. 4 - would I like to visit once or twice a year, at worst case, if things require my hands-on attendance.A combination of the four pointed at Japan, which is where I'm primarily invested (with smaller portions of our family portfolio in the US, Europe and Australia), although I'm only living there half the year at this point, thanks to good team utilization which means I don't need to go there unless I want to - this may change now that the yen's down and our son's nearing primary school age - which is the whole point of renting where you live and investing where the money and the environment works for you - to retain the flexibility and lifestyle benefits of being able to work and live anywhere we want at any given time.This is, of course, a long process of rationalization and calculation summarized in a nutshell - if I haven't bored you to death yet, and you want to hear more about the hows and whys of investing overseas, feel free to contact me. :)Best of luck in your chosen path, you seem to be considering all the right factors before embarking on it - I'm sure you'll enjoy the ride.

More moving parts, emotions and D potential (death, divorce, disinterest, drug use, default etc) the more potential for problems!

The federal penalty could be the federal death penalty.If the federal government cracks down they will not treat this like white collar crime.  

People always move because their lives change, job, divorce, death, kids, more space, new girlfriend etc.