Don't know a thing about your market, but you can buy 2-4 units and they're treated as a SFR from a lending perspective so you can put as little as 3% down.Live in one - rent out the other three.If (when) a crash or correction happens, you'll be in a sweet spot as your largest expense is covered by rental income from the other 3 units.Look for some margin, so if you have to drop rents to appeal to more tenants you're not coming out of pocket.You can actually do this once a year, so in 5 years, if you bought a 4plex every year, you could own 20 units.A lot of people have posted about house hacking, there's podcasts about it and @Craig Curelop wrote a book about it: https://www.biggerpockets.com/store/house-hacking-ultimateI wish you well!

Cash or seller financing is usually most appealing to these kinds of how owners, but that all depends on how quickly they want to get rid of the property.

I think for me, taking part in helping build up the local economy by investing in real estate while spreading the word in my own country about an undiscovered unique place is the appeal.  

This being said the cheaper rent may be more appealing to the local renter.

Because of this the thought of turning $5,000 into $10,000, and so on is very appealing.

I've got a hunch that's a bit more appealing than CA. 

A new roof and paint on the exterior provided a facelift to the curb appeal.

Look up Sean Terry and Max Maxwell on youtube and see if that appeals to you.

Upon appeal (Tidewater Clause), I got it up to $345,000. 

Bronxville seems to have all the qualities that should appeal to a higher-end demographic: good schools, easy commute into NYC, parks, etc.