I know a lot of Canadians that bought in the Southern U.S. and some of them sold out with a nice profit. But there are major issues with foreigners buying U.S. homes. They can't work on the house themselves as they don't have a green card to work apparently and can be arrested for fixing up their own place,lol. Hard to believe but that is apparently the case. And taxes can be dramatically higher for foreigners as well. Lots of issues that can cause problems especially in Florida I hear. I hear smart money has been buying up homes and condos and renting them out as you mentioned and prices have recovered nicely as well as the renter is paying the bills. You still have dead beat tenants that can trash the house and skip paying as well. It happens here a lot and tenants have a lot of rights on their side legally. I've know a few guys that sold their rentals due to this problem. You try to throw them out and you'll be arrested.

Here is a link bottom left of post on the long term Weekly chart of the U.S.$. Much improved chart with the low in 2008. With the other currencies needing to trash their own currency in order to export and keep their people working and paying taxes and not rioting I think the U.S.$ is the currency to be in. Japan set off this currency war recently with the election of a pro inflation official and a dramatic trashing of the Yen in order to be a major successful competitive exporter once again. Everyone else will follow suit I suspect. I read that Canada lost 30% of their export markets strictly due to a high currency. I have all my investment money in U.S.$ and plan on keeping it there. I can always buy all the other currencies as ETFs on the NYSE and just park my money on any of them if I see opportunities there as well.