@s55 bhai,
It is better to visit first, scope the market, talk to some people in the area you want to buy. Then invest. The website can only give a small snapshot. The best way is to take some time and visit personally. 50K is a big amount to invest. I know you have mentioned that you have visited Canada or have family members there. I have read about Canadian market and have an acquaintance in Toronto Canada. The houses in Canada are expensive compared to US. Average house in Toronto costs about $500K, same as in NYC or LA. The cheapest areas to buy in US are the Midwest states, like Michigan, Ohio, Indiana. But they also have their drawbacks. The job markets are tough in Midwest and weather is worst in whole of US, bad winters, but similar to Canada's winters. In Michigan where I live, the cold weather starts from Late October and lasts till end of April, meaning there is a chance of snow till April, so 6 to 7 month of cold weather, only 4 to 5 months of good weather. It makes new visitors from hot weather countries like Pakistan very sad and sick at first, but after few years they get used to the cold weather.
Texas, Houston is similar to Karachi in weather. Also Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, have good weather. I don't know about their investment scene. But I do know, the basics which are same all over US. The job market, the local population (i.e mostly black and hispanic areas are called inner cities and ghettos), you can buy some cheap house down South, but it can be costly mistake, you can be misled by a real estate agent to invest in some inner city ghetto, and you think Wow, I am buying a house for only $50K, but after a while you realize the area is infested with gang activity, drug activity, prostitution, robberies, car theft, murders, all very common economically bad area like All of Detroit, parts of NYC, Miami, Houston, South Side Chicago, South Central Los Angeles specially Compton neighborhood area.
You really have to be very very careful when investing in a property in US and have lived here and worked here for some years to understand which areas, cities, are good to invest. The Chinese investors have a lot of money and buy in Blocks of 10s or even 100s of houses and pay Millions of dollars, Chinese are unbelievably rich now, and they love US property, so they have agents that charge them hundreds of thousands of dollars and buy houses after a lot of research.
Places like where I live, Farmington Hills, Michigan, you have to be in US, and be able to manage the property and be able to fix it up yourself, ie. paint the house, clean the carpet, fix the plumbing, things like that yourself. I did a lot of cleaning, tearing up walls, and learned a lot in the process, by fixing the houses myself. In US, it is entirely different scenerio then in Pakistan, where you can hire workers cheaply to paint, fix things.
Here in US you have to do a lot of fixing, cleaning, putting flooring, etc. yourself, and there are a lot of places which help you buy things you need to fix a house. And believe it or not, it is much easier to remodel a house in USA than in Pakistan, where houses are made out of concrete and you can not tear up and rebuilt as easily.
There are a lot of resources, like Home Depots, Mennards, Lowe's, these are big home improvement department stores that sell Paint, Wood Flooring, Dry Walls, power tools, gardening, lighting, Lawn mowers, etc. all under one roof. Its a wonder hobby, fixing houses, as a side job, which a lot of people do, apart from their regular full time job.
I hope this was helpful.
