You'll be taking on a lot of risk as a property owner/landlord, so make sure you have the spread that is worth it. 

Leaving in NY what part of east coast that is landlord friendly.

In my experience, most agents aren't going to be helpful here (some exceptions).You can ballpark these things after getting some data:Rent:  use the sites  you think you're future tenant will use to find you as a landlord (Zillow, Rent.com, a big property manager in your area, Craigslist) and look for similar places in similar neighborhoods. 

Also keep in mind that two separate tenants on one property may cause additional problems for you as the Landlord and may scare away some renters that don't want to share the property.

My dad owned a small commercial property for nearly 50 years without an LLC, though he looked into it in the 1980's and his lawyer told him to forget it.As to mitigating risks, the main one is insurance, good landlord insurance with umbrella, preferably $2 million or greater.

However, he's been renting the same house for 7 years and was just recently told that his landlord is planning to list it for sale. 

and I fix it myself myself.I only recommend this for people who have the time to do it, are handy, and are not afraid of the possibility that a defective light switch could result in adopting a kitten or checking a fence for evil paper wasps could obligate a sibling to adopting a evil Malaysian Tokay Gecko that was not evil enough to deserve death from an unusually cold Florida winter.Being a landlord has had a few completely unexpected consequences lol.

Definitely better tenant pool. 

On page 8, point 19B states "Landlord, in its sole discretion and for its sole benefit, shall cause the Premises to be insured as it deems appropriate.

When the crap hits the fan, pooling of money for deals will absolutely function like a pyramid scheme for some unscrupulous operators...they will rob from Peter to pay Paul, many times without bad intentions.It also takes good internal record keeping to keep from commingling funds.