I’m reading that the capital gains invested are only deferred until 2026.  

I really appreciate it, now it’s time for me to start to find amazing deals and present it to my parent!

In a smaller city like Albany I'd make sure that the inventory you'd be looking for in a higher priced multifamily is there, also I'd be flexible in your approach and take whichever option presents you with a good deal first.

As someone starting out, I just wanted to get a take from more experienced rental property investors.I want to present you with two routes that a guy like me is considering to take: 1) save up capital generated from some sort of active income (a job or side hustle) and then get my feet wet by investing in a lower class, lower capital intensive area/property OR 2) find a willing partner with money they are willing to invest with me and use their cash as leverage for something like the down payment or any repairs that needs to be made.From my current perspective, Option 1 will take more time, but provides me a little more security in the sense that I'm not putting anyone else's money at risk nor am I diving into the deep end of a higher end market (in my case, Southern California).

I say go to a lot of the different meetup soups around from meetup.com and network with different people and learn from the presentations given

If the opportunity presents itself for you to sell and get a large profit that you can reinvest in something else, then do it.

Probably did not reach out to as many people as I "should have" but I think it was worthwhile.My question would be that the presenters/speakers were a couple that are doing this 3-day "boot camp" at the end of January.

I planned on presenting the deal to some cash buyers but I don’t want to be so far off on my #’s that I’m not of value to anyone or have anyone thinking I’m greedy.

It's good that you've budgeted a combined 15% for monthly repairs + capex, but you may want to bump that up to 20%.Even as you've presented this deal, the cash-on-cash ROI is less than 5%. 

I used them when I first started out (oh so many years ago) They are very professional and have a nice presentation.