Fast forward 4 months and multiple lunches later, I was performing all kinds of tasks for him and soaking up as much of his knowledge and experience as I possibly could!

HelloI am looking for rentals to add to my current portfolio and am trying to narrow down my search to one or two cities to focus on based off mainly projected job/population growth, potential ROI, and where i can hopefully meet the 1-2% rule and so far I'm looking at the four cities in the title.

It's seeing incredible growth!  

Who will be dealing with all the sale tasks on the back end (inspections, appraisals, paperwork, etc)?

So in other words all the hard and time consuming tasks are already done and the property is cash flowing from day one".It is very important you do not just invest on faith, learn the area, the team you intend on working with, really drilling down if the boutique supplier is offering you value for your strategy.

Renovating a 100+ yr old "historic" house is one of the most challenging and difficult tasks...for anyone; I can't imagine taking this on as a "super green", "newbie".  

I'll share the "why" at the bottom of this post.I think you would be much better served to find an agent that will perform these tasks for you on your own. 

But as mentioned earlier in the thread, if that's the type of cap rate you're looking for I'd much rather focus on Jersey City close to light rail stops or Bayonne NJ, because those areas have added growth potential that Newark does not, in my opinion.

GDP growth compared to national provincia(state) and city core.

I know you want to start out slow, but as I draw up a business plan, I want to be able to account for growth in strategy and formula.