Those who are willing to be in a shared space will pay on the low end of the spectrum.

Some if not most of this risk can be handled through due diligence, IF you have a great enough understanding of the specific real estate type and subject market; the time to perform a thorough vetting and the knowledge/ability to perform a proper due diligence.You may be seeing 20% + as a target return, usually for deals on the riskier end of the spectrum.  

I own assets across that entire spectrum (A class I manage myself locally, B and C I have property mangers for locally and out of state) and I can tell you from experience that managing C class is a fair amount of work.

You can definitely find cash flowing properties in Massachusetts however it is on a spectrum.

I'm not sure what your time horizon is, or your goals are, but happy to give a high level approach.To overgeneralize, there are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to investing in Real Estate as part of a financial plan:1.

You must be talking about high ROI on low income housing, using HUD, or simply buying houses at the low end of the price spectrum. 

With that being an extreme end of the spectrum, I would just recommend a lease history and landlord verification along with the background check. 

On the other end of the spectrum, there is also a great deal of requests on the lower end of the leasing spectrum, from the vast amount of service industry employees in need of affordable and comfortable homes.

I have 7 analyzers covering the spectrum of asset classes.

If there is an injury or fatality, there presents a broad spectrum of assumed liability, and negligence (if not gross negligence) on your part.