Secured by real property.

I would still classify myself as a newbie in the real estate investing world, i have 3 rentals currently, but they all came from my military days as personal owned homes that i kept and turned into rentals, i had 7 rentals at one point, but i sold off the non-performing properties as soon as i could break even on them.

Based on my income + about 70k in savings from selling non-performing properties i have been debating a few ways of going...I have been keeping an eye on MLS listings since i still hold my real estate license for the past few months and Craigslist for cash deals, but i feel the prices are just terrible right now on your typical 3/2 rental properties...Option 1: Should i keep looking for 3/2, 4/2+ under 150k deals for rentals in hopes of something popping up?

For smaller properties, an extra vacancy can throw the property immediately into negative financial performance. 

Currently, I am working with a PM company in Richmond/Tidewater area that manages over 2500 properties, and very happy with their performance and overall efficiency in doing things.

It's hard to perform a useful analysis without an estimated renovation budget, so let's assume it's $15K.

What is not legal in NJ is any form of required prepayment in excess of 1.5 months security.

I believe the greatest security you could put in place would be to take a 2nd position lien on the property behind the bank her financing is coming from.

In exchange for their money, they get first mortgage on the property to secure their funds, with monthly interest payments.

However, it does not always make financial sense to empty and gut the building to carry out a deep retrofit (and even when it does, that initial whooshing roar of capital flying out of your bank account can be unsettling).As of late, we have been purchasing rather, to very, unloved buildings with plans to (eventually) perform deep retrofits on many of them {where the increase in the property performance will pay-back the investment in a relatively short period (say 3 - 6 years) versus the planned hold duration (i.e. 20yrs).