It goes deeper than that.NYC Liberal policies, including strong tenant protections, increases the risk of failure so much that the risk far outweighs the rewards.Financial ruin is just around the corner for the small Mom and Pop Property Investor that it doesn't make sense for them.The Tenants will have free Attorneys that are bent on delaying eviction cases so long that it stretches into years while Mom and Pop suffer from lack of rental income and still have to pay all the bills and do the management.Additionally, the increase in homeless living rough in the streets due to Sanctuary laws causing a lack of shelter beds, then evicting shelter residents after 30 days creating more homelessness, policies that tie up the Police's ability to arrest perpetrators, etc. only causes Mom and Pop to sell out at large discounts to larger Landlords who are capable to use Economies of Scale to eek out a profit.These larger Landlords will eventually turn a much higher profit as the pendulum will eventually swing towards the middle when the NYC Voting population eventually realizes that it's not a conspiracy of the Rich that's causing the Wealth Gap to increase.It's the same liberal laws that encourage people to become lifelong tenants, small Entrepreneurs (including Property Owners and small Mom and Pop Businesses) to be destroyed, and Rents to rise astronomically as housing becomes scarer even when the population declines by as much as 7% in the last several years. 

Will rents go back to their peaks and eventually past? 

Local market for now but eventually I'd love to target out-of-state properties as well.

With a utility provided by the government, it makes sense to keep the bill in your name because usually if it doesn't get paid it eventually becomes a lien on the house. 

The last house I bought, was brought to me off-market by my agent, and it's seeming that off-market is the only way to get good properties without the MLS prices.I've recently got a nice business card printed up, and would like to start a direct mailer campaign, using BatchLeads to find multifamily properties in the local towns that I wish to invest in.I have a pretty strict criteria about what I'm looking to purchase at this time:-Legal 2-or-more unit large Multifamily (not required to be owner occupied)-Each unit should be at least 3 bedrooms (so if it's a duplex, it needs to be 6+ bedrooms)-Sewer (not septic)-Gas (not oil)A lot of this information is not readily available online, so once I start my mailers, I'm sure I'm going to find people who eventually respond, but that don't have criteria which match what I'm looking for.I feel like it would be a waste if I paid a bunch of money for direct mailers, and then someone reaches out to me to sell, but their house doesn't match the criteria of what I'm looking for -- I don't know anything about wholesaling.What can I do to monetize these leads, or is the answer is that I need to learn So we believe no lead is a bad lead.

But I eventually took a deep breath this past weekend and passed on the opportunity, lol.That's the reason for the question.

MY LTR's are mid-tier for their market and have minimal cash flow at the moment so it all gets eaten up by  repairs and manager fee, my goal with these is mainly long-term appreciation and eventual cashflow as rents rise. 

Eventually, I aim to refinance with conventional financing and repay the hard-lending loan. 

Find a way to (eventually) incorporate flipping into your business.

Maybe they will get some family support or maybe eventually she will have a new significant other with good employment that will move on.