That being said @Martin Grizzanti is extremely knowledgeable in the Rochester market and can provide more insight!

However multifamily/hotels/mall/office asset class are extremely volative and too much rate-sensitive.It's no longer even about particular syndicator, basically some of your asset class can't survive interest rate.For average Joe and Mary, best advice is just to simply put money into SPY/SGOV or direct SF home ownership.

I see that you're in CO - STR investing in CO can be extremely profitable, which is why my personal investment portfolio is so heavily weighted in that direction.

The two strategies you outlined are extremely helpful to consider..

Go to Etsy and search for "rental property tracker," and you will find hundreds of nice spreadsheets to track 10-20 rentals, usually for under $10.Software has extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button, and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.

We do not have serious floods, tornados, heavy snow and rain, frequent major hailstorms, big earthquakes, or extreme weather conditions.

Just like our BANKERS validate and question our deal analysis, you need to be the BANKER.Majority of the Syndication failures going on right now are due to either Short-term financing used on longer term projects- in a period of extreme interest rate hikes, material Inflation, or Covid related supply chain or personnel issues.You as the BANKER, know that all of the above should have been covered by the Syndicator and by you the BANKER. 

Verifying last 2 years of rental history and income extremely important to find the “best of the worst”.Make sure you understand the Class of properties you are looking at and the corresponding results to expect.The City of Detroit has 183 Neighborhoods we’ve analyzed.PM us if you’d like to discuss this logical approach in greater detail!

However, Northern Utah seems to me an extremely hot market right now, with deals closing before they can even hit the MLS.

So your tenant pool is extremely important if not the most important thing to look at when investing in NJ.