And with the new law, any area in NYS can institute rent control.

Check with Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) or National Apartment Association (NAA) to see if they provide resources. 

If you're really thinking about it, it's not too early to start connecting with some loan officers or financial institutions to see what sort of loan options you might qualify for. 

Some institutions and some government backed finance products prohibit the down payment monies from being borrowed funds.

What you said was generally true, except lending institutions are finally starting to come around to the legitimacy of the short term rental world. 

Over 4 years ago, I left my job working for larger institutional private equity firms to start working on the type of projects I truly cared about, in locations where I was most interested in.

Successful entrepreneurs make more money than most people but getting a solid education from a top-tier institution is still the highest probability path to ensuring social mobility and an upper middle-class life (at the bare minimum).  

Not handouts, but intelligent, collaborative deals that empower them to move forward in life-creating a scholarship fund to help kids get to college-funding a local civic center, cancer research institute, Walk for Hunger, or whatever tickles your fancy-tithing to your churchLife has been good to me, too, and I certainly spent a lot of time pursuing skydiving and such.

It is much more reliable than a pre-approval by a lender or real estate agent due to the comprehensiveness of the NACA program, and NACA’s special relationship with the participating financial institutions.

It might depend on the institution through.