I would throw caution at giving credibility to news stories about rates driving people out of Florida or increased natural disasters impacting rates.

I'm looking into potentially house hacking a small multi-family home, preferably in northern NJ (such as Morris county) or Westchester, NY if possible, but I'm open to other areas that are hopefully within about 1.5 hours (driving or public transit) of Manhattan.

I found out about the state of the lawn through a friend that did me the favor to drive to the property to check it out.

I like to provide safe and family friendly housing.I used their "last months" deposit for September as this is considered their last month after being served the notice. 

I have a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry/Quantum Dynamics... https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jcp/article/142/24/244112/74387 ... and I literally designed and built my own house off of 30A in Florida ... https://www.scenicsir.com/homes/242-Blue-Gulf-Drive/Santa-Ro... ....

You can buy something like a cheap Arlo camera system at Costco and pay for the Internet connection in one of your units.You could ask law enforcement to do routine drive-bys or safety checks.

Most folks would prefer to drunk drive home from the games unfortunately.

Yes, you can safely assume that all numbers provided by the listing agent will be ... highly suspect! 

Like I cant drive and just recently I lost job.

With 9,000 of these positions offering salaries exceeding $100,000 annually, the influx of employees and their families is projected to drive up demand for housing significantly.