Thanks everyone for the advice it was a well needed morale boost.

If you can get a 4 unit and a basement, that would be ideal and create major cash flow and equity creation, plus you can not worry about a property manager and boost your yield.Personally, I am very bullish on New York and NYC itself.

I don't think it would offer a return, it might be nice yeah but it wouldn't boost your nightly rate especially if it is a vacation area. 

Then at 19, you might think of how a part time or summer job might boost your experience.

I started this when I was 22 and it has significantly boosted my net worth over the past few years, especially since I have been doing it as a live-in flip as well.

Here is the average breakdown of Unemployment State-by-State with the additional $600 boost.

There are a couple of big renovation projects going on that will eventually boost the property prices.

The rents can help boost value, especially if you are achieving above market rents due to rehabs.

And maybe this new fannie mae program with the super low down payments and reduced costs (when compared to fha programs) will be the tipping point to boosting that demand.

You could ask your loan officer to run a What If simulator to see how much of a score boost you would get by paying down your balances even further.