Real estate investing has been a passion of mine for time with my mother also having invested early on where I likely have gotten the love and desire to follow similar foot steps.I have taken last 6 months to educate myself and currently own a single family home as primary residence and would like to expand to multi family properties (2-4 units) for additional stream of income, not to mention potential tax benefits for long-term investing.Based on current living situation, I have a fair amount of equity established in my primary residency along with having enough cash to either pay off house completely or use towards investing in a multi family property.Given that I'm the sole source of income for our household with my wife being the home maker for our two kids under 2, trying to weigh out risks with getting started now or perhaps waiting. 

Well-maintained homes: Homeowners tend to spend more time and money maintaining their homes, which contributes to the overall quality of the neighborhood.

This reminds me of the discussion around pricing things at $x.99 instead of $x+1.00.EXAMPLE: $4.99 instead of $5.00Everyone "knows" that the price in the example is basically $5.So, why do billion dollar companies, spending more on marketing departments than everyone's combined income on this thread, STILL use the $x.99 pricing format?

Similar to the comments above on using FurnishedFinder, also check Airbnb and sort for 30+ day rental options. in addition, I'd recommend talking to the local university and hospitals nearby by calling to their various departments.

No need to spend an extra $1000 for something a tenant won't notice. 

That being said due to the number of sharks out there I would only spend money that I can afford to lose. 

These are professionals with additional training and a stricter code of ethics.

An example of that is tenant must pay for additional electric over flat fee / flat limit since now there is 2 occupants in the home instead of originally one.

Helps you stand apart from similar 4 bedroom homes and if you choose to pursue a rent by the room strategy in can create additional cash flow.

New York is hard to evict people and you'll end up spending more time and money doing it yourself.