He explained that was one of the reasons he wanted to meet face to face.

My contractor was slow but he was really reasonable on prices and I found some great deals on the material as well.  

Reason being is that I will be in school for the next 2-3 years(10-20K rent), I can add value/fix the house while I'm living in it, instead of paying rent I can rent out the other 3 rooms to my friends at school (mortgage payments/free living/profit?)

The reason we all own rental properties is to have the money to NOT have to deal with crappy neighbors. 

-must come in a grayish to light gray/brown color-must be reasonably priced.

But you would then need to sign the offer under this name.For all these reasons, I would probably create the LLC well in advance.

I cant seem to find a good basic paint job with prep at a reasonable price.

I would check all your windows to make sure they are still secure.I have used Simply Safe and it has been reasonably prices and works fairly well.Ames

Yes, there are podcasts that mention avoiding high crime areas, but there are also podcasts where people specifically work in areas that most people avoid... primarily for the reason that most people avoid it, and they have no issue with it.If you are planning on managing the property yourself, then you need to know the kind of tenants you want to have, and that will help you narrow down which kind of neighborhoods you want to concentrate on.

But in west Suffolk County, you can purchase a rental property for a reasonable price, reasonable taxes (by NY standards), and you can still fetch a strong rental income because you're close to Nassau County which has high salary earners.