Then, once you've shown that you can meet or exceed return projections to family and friends, you can attract additional capital from passive investors.Regardless, real estate is a long-term game, so any strategy you use will likely take years to get off the ground.

They only need to close within a time frame that includes the first one to sell (in other words they all sell within 180 days of the sale of the first property) as long as you can locate the right replacement and get the right terms.Another very attractive option would be to scale down a little and maybe look for a replacement property that you could get for $600K - like a 2.4 - $3 mil property that needs $400K of work to get it to high functioning. 

Space is attractive, with a large atrium in center that provides an open, light-filled, airy feeling. 

So, you don't have to build the Taj Mahal to attract tenants.

.- I'm drawn to the Mt Pocono area for it's proximity to local attractions, but does anybody have any other recommendations?

Back in the dark ages ('80's) I would approach older home owners & offer them a buyout with them holding the note at an attractive interest rate.

Also, most sex offenders are one time offenders with no actual sexual attraction to children in general and these days a large number of sex offenders did not even offend a minor. 

If not, how do you plan to attract tenants? 

It is a knish market and to succeed you must have a well known name and reputation to attract the elite that will pay based only on being able to drop names among their world of elites. 

I would be using the existing structure for storage for an existing business (which could pay rent to my RE entity), and hopefully building on the land in the long run once the neighborhood becomes more attractive.