I'm definitely  going  to become a investor, but my plan is to be patient  so as to not start off on the wrong foot. 

This was definitely a great starting point to get my foot in the door.I'd love to keep in contact with all of you incase something comes up in the future that we could possibly collaborate on and complete some deals together. 

I'm definitely going to form an LLC or S-Corp.

Obviously that takes some work, but it's definitely doable.

So under your "return" definition the market pays MORE for less "return"????

,The best option for you definitely depends on your needs.  

You can probably learn everything you'd need to know for free on here and blogs, and definitely everything you'd need to know by spending under $250 on Amazon.Unfortunately, if you don't have a lot of money yourself I would say NYC is going to be a VERY uphill battle at best, and most likely you won't be able to invest here. 

I agree with the other comments, that a higher end tenant will probably want the a/c, lower end the swamp cooler.The swamp coolers are definitely cheaper to run, but since I don't pay utilities, I am more concerned about the maintenance time and costs.  

Definitions.

I'd definitely check out the BP webinars and podcasts as they're a great resource to learn from.