Possibly lower returns than projected because of statutorily mandated interest rates following court judgements.

By investing in metropolitan areas your yield would be lower (6% to 7%) but you would have a lower vacancy rate.

I thought there was a chance that one could use real estate to directly lower their main source of taxable income (such as a w2).

Quote from @Jaycee Greene: I am currently saving so the lower the better just for my time being Quote from @Ella Marie: Hello I'm new here and I am more than excited to get started in the real estate business.

Contrary to most business lending, the REI industry has a lot of "non-bank" lenders that provide attractive loans that can lower your cost of capital and improve your profit/cash flow. 

Their ability to recover their money should you default is much lower in this position.

A lot of people are giving you advice without enough context as to what you would like to do other than get a higher than 3% cash on cash return and other than only putting down 20% - 30% as a down payment.Something that is important to know to give proper suggestions is what you want the investment to do for you and how active you want to be in the investment.In general, the more active you are, the higher your return, the less active you are, the lower the return because you pay for others to do that work for you.

There are some pockets in this lower price range but they are hard to find and sellers won't let them go for the price you want often. 

There is a ton of fix and flip going on in Brooklyn and I am trying to work my confidence towards that after my first project at a lower price point around 300K somewhere (CT seems like my only option). 

The problem with vacancy is it assumes all products are the same, our 2 bedroom which is designed much better than our 3 bedroom and more thoroughly remodeled has lower vacancy.