Personally I would sell and get the $300,000 out of the NJ place and buy something you could get a positive return on 

I get a snotty return text (at least that's how I read it as you can't really read a time in a text) essentially saying they hadn't received the unemployment check yet for the last two weeks of August and since I wouldn't let them make payments and wanted payment in full . . .  

I have started speaking with folks who do rentals >30 days in the East Bay and South Bay, and they are generally getting returns well above long-term unfurnished rentals. 

The NPV is the Net Present Value of an income stream, discounted to the cost of capital (or required rate of return) and the IRR sets the NPV function = 0 to get a rate of return.

I am closing in on 30k now so hopefully my returns will be higher.

But 8% seems like a fairly low rate of return for what you will be doing.

Make it clear to the tenants that you want to return 100% of their deposit and you will happily do so after they return the unit back to you in the same or better condition than they received it.  

I used to attend, and will return when my travel schedule slows down.

Im selling a houses in few weeks that will net me +/-80k, and closing on a house to purchase that will make a decent return.

If you want to hear all the advantages of San Diego RE you can PM me but suffice to say it has historically produced very good returns and this is verifiable fact (anyone can verify this).However, you do not know whether you plan to stay in San Diego.