I came close to purchasing a few myself but decided to walk away last minute to focus on other projects.

Some of the cons of our location is that it is attached/sharing 1 wall to the front house, the patio is 30 ft up an alley where they walk past our front yard to get to their patio, it is lit and our neighbors have their front door on the same access alley so not a threatening looking alley by any means.

If the seller does not accept, then I give them the option to not take my counter offer.If I paid the "non-refundable" deposit and the seller walks, then I am out the money.

I agree with this statement and you're second-next step needs to be getting qualified/finding money and walking properties.

(Need to commute to midtown w/o a car and for it to be safe enough for my girlfriend to be comfortable walking alone in the evening)I’ve thought about D4D/direct marketing but I don’t know how effective it would be in the NYC area?

We do Annual Evaluations/Walk-thrus to monitor tenant damages.

Then visit all of those areas and walk the neighborhoods.

@Roy N. and Jeff Beard Thanks for your responses...you summarized the options well.While the property might be beautiful, if the numbers don't justify pursuit then the right thing to do is walk away.  

I did a walk through a few days before it was advertised through Facebook.

I will identify value add opportunities like walk-out basements, room conversion opportunities, etc.