Property taxes, tenant laws, increasing inventory in the city, decreasing market value upstate, and demographic trends are all headwinds for the NYC and NYS markets (the city is obviously different from the rest of the state).I believe the best strategy is to look out-of-state.

I use linen white for all my apartments. semi gloss for kitchen and bath, egg shell for rest of the apartment.

The rest however, generate $11k-$12,500K a month in gross rent.

The wood flooring in the rest of the apartment seems to be fine.

@Ludmila Hill  just as an aside  I can see why folks would gravitate to this company they are offering rates for HML in the 7s... this is just not market rate for Texas OR NV.. its market CA or 8 to 9%.. but for the rest of the country its too good to be true..

The 2X10 joists have a notch cut out of them and they are resting on what appears to be a 2X4 or maybe 4X4.

The rest was parents paying, student loans, grants, scholarships, etc.  

I then took out a home equity loan and paid them their part and used the rest for whatever I needed.

If you buy with all cash, and the market drops, you're cash in your property also dropped since the property is worth less than you paid for it.If you only spend a down payment, and finance the rest, that drop doesn't impact you since what you have established is a cash flow situation...that isn't impacted by the drop in property value.

I draw from the rest of my commission as needed.