I grew up in New York and worked in Manhattan most of my career for a fortune 50 company that maintained building systems and my accounts were in the financial district (American Express, Merrill Lynch, Chase, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Bank of NY, AIG Building) and I got to see first hand what 2007/08 did to people and that still scares me.

I live in Manhattan at the moment.

Austin is an island of blue among the red of Texas but that isn't real constraints like a peninsula nor an island like Manhattan.  

If money were no object, I might have a place in HI, Manhattan, San Francisco, south FL, and TX. 

Hi Ed, my wife and I live in a rent stabilized apt in Manhattan.

No this is not mid town Manhattan. 

House hacking makes sense, but this means it would also have to be in a neighborhood that is tolerable and close enough to my available work which fluctuates between Rockland County NY and Manhattan.

There are three methods for aluminum repair approved by CPSC1 - Change all the wires (Most expensive )2 - copper pig tailing with COPALUM (Less expensive but require the electrician to be certified in using COPALUM)3 - Alumicon connectors (very economical. this is a product by "The king innovations" These are special connectors and available at home depot around 65$ per pack pf 25. ) I actually asked my electrician to use that but he found out that the box does not have enough room to install this product and he warned if we do that the aluminum wire may bend and break and would cause fire)Fortunately we found that most of the wet outlets were copper.

I am in downtown manhattan and speak 3 major european languages besides English!

Given that the people on your direct mailing list have possibly received similar mailings from other interested parties, calling can make all the difference.Cold calling takes very little training, a go to script, a whole lot pf preparation and a lot of patience.