@Kathleen McCabe I believe the reason you don't see as much about investing abroad is the added complications foreign investment brings.  

The issue you would run into if forming the LLC in New York and having properties from NJ in it would be the additional costs of the foreign filing fees.

I have bought property in foreign countries.. this was before block chain but its the same basic process other than a notary is more like an attorney than our versions. 

As a first level of protection you would need insurances.As a second level, you would want to insulate your dangerous asset (liability prone) from your non dangerous asset (shares, notes, bank accounts).As a third level, you could split all your dangerous assets in separate entities and/or strip the equity out of them.As a fourth level, you would dissociate operational entities from asset holding entities.If you want even higher level of asset protection, you could then look for foreign asset protection trust or entities.

And throw in California.... well, that's like a foreign country.

When we purchased the property 5 years ago we were told only the garage was the only electricity bill we were responsible for.Which we didn't have any issues with this for the last five years.Suddenly, our first tenant called the electric company to come out to dispute her electricity bill.Now we wended up with a letter from the electric company that the foreign wiring needs to be transferred to the landlord's account.Now what? 

The range which also was new was covered in  a layer of grease and grease, food debris, and other foreign object under the cover of the range top. 

There's also been a fair amount of foreign money: like all cash foreign buyers buying properties sight unseen.

Foreign investor who had been paying cash have slowed down quite a bit.. with many buying in your area frankly and other very tough rental markets and being sold crap properties for high prices and getting totally burned.. so they are much more cautious these days. 3. now that investor loans are back on the table investors are returning to pre 08 habits of obtaining debt when they can get it so they can leverage up...

If you own a property in a different state then your LLC will need to file as a foreign entity with state in which the property is located.