Whatever they had to do to put all these moving parts together and make them viably work to some degree, tells me about their business mentality and possibilities for future success.

Go to your county or City Planning and Zoning website and see to what degree you can subdivide. 

Since you are just graduating college you may already realize that it's not what you know, but who you know (as a personal note, I had college friends that were barely passing their classes however they ended up with really good paying jobs due to "who they knew").

If yes to invest in NY, what would be the recommendation criteria that I can implement to protect me to some degree.

Most other investments are going to increase your risk on a net basis and require a degree of work on your part.

The property is a 3/2, in a great family friendly area and very close to a commuter college.

The only way we can support that is to adjust the selling price to compensate to some degree - spreadsheets are great in seeing what is needed to make us and them happy.Hope this helps .  . 

Most of these buyers are newly out of college so they might have friends that will be roommates.

Hi All, I recently closed on 3r / 2b (each unit) duplex in Fayetteville Ark right near to the college.

So now we have conditioned when a person leverages self to the gill's, taken on mountains of debt and the grand some of there career is waiting tables or making coffee and some toilet-paper degree that a bajillion others also have, and maybe a few years experience at best.