Starting out with 60K downpayment

[Phillip Leytes]

Hi everyone! I am trying to purchase my first investment property and I need some advice. I'm 24 and pay rent in downtown Jersey City. My friend and I have saved around 60K for a down payment and we are trying to figure out what to do. 

First idea was to do a house hack as we pay rent but we quickly realized the price/rent ratios in nicer areas around NYC are not conducive to making cash flow. Not to mention we'd have to get approved for 700K+ properties which I feel is quite risky for a first property. While we realize there are cheaper areas around the city (Class C/D neighborhoods), I'm not interested in living in those places at the moment.

We then started considering purchasing multifamily/single family homes in much cheaper parts of the state/area. Our concern is that it seems like you need to go to low Class C to Class D areas to get more affordable prices and from what I've learned over the past few weeks, these properties present many additional risks like evictions, property damage, etc. 

What towns would you recommend looking at? I've been looking at towns like Clifton, Plainfield, and Toms River that are much cheaper than a JC but I'm generally not seeing anything yet that looks like it would cash flow well. Are there areas in New Jersey that are great for first time investors? Ideally, I want something under 300K as it's our first property and I don't want to take on too much.  

Lastly, would anyone recommend long distance investing for a first property? It seems like a terrible idea as I don't have any out of state connections but maybe it's our only option if this area is too expensive.   

If you were in my shoes, what would you do? 

I appreciate everyone's help!