Find a local meet up and near by larger investment clubs to go and network.

@John Hovanec, unless you live nearby and will be doing all repairs yourself I would run the other way.

Animal folks always looking for a place to move to in order to have their animals nearby. 

I can invision myself starting in 1 year - I already have va strategy in place to stockpile $18K in the next 12 months, thus having substantial start up money I presume.

Check out Network>Members for nearby investors you can work with.

I live in Central New Jersey near Trenton and I am interested in investing in residential multi-family rental properties nearby.

Not all states/counties make the info public, but if you are in a state that does so, you can go to the county website the property of interest is located in, usually by their GIS system, and find what properties sold nearby to use as a comparison. 

Have you started looking for properties near by?

Stockpile as much cash as possible to weather a storm, be vigilant on the acquisition, and get your systems organized now while there is still stability.

That being said, with multifamily properties (at least with those over a couple units), the value is derived from the cap rate (net income / Price) as how that compares to similar multifamily properties nearby.