Where to start for reasonably safe, passive cash flow?

[Frank Bee]

Looking to start investing in real estate as part of my portfolio to get some reasonably passive cash flow going.

A little about me and where I'm at.

Been in the tech industry for a number of years in SF, but trying to plan my escape route. In between jobs right now, but expect to stay in the industry (here or elsewhere) for another 5 years or more.

We were saving to buy a house in SF, and went through a number of offers last year, but in the end just seemed too crazy of a market to buy into. Currently we’re living in a rent controlled one bedroom in a good part of town so rent is so cheap it just doesn't make sense to buy (just going from 1 bedroom rent to 2 bedroom purchase would have us paying out about 4x per month what we pay now). Although with a wife and newborn child, I'm guessing we can only handle another year or two squeezing into the 1 bedroom we have.

Since we didn't buy, we have a large cash reserve sitting in the bank not even keeping up with inflation (using online savings account that is currently at 1.15% interest).

We have about 40% of our money sitting in a handful of stocks that have been performing well over the last handful of years, and plan to keep enough money in the bank account to cover about a year and half of expenses should something go wrong. This leaves us with about $250k to try to get some cash flow working.

Considering buying some rental properties out of our area that have a decent return.

Passive is ideal, so would most likely want to work with a property management company.

Would love to do AirBnB for the higher returns (and would be willing to be more active in that space), but would need it to be legal and above board, and since regulations are so risky I would need to have the numbers work as a long term rental as a fallback to feel comfortable (I have some experience in that space, as I have a family house that I AirBnB in the summer just to keep up with the house's expenses and upkeep).

My research has only just started this week, so not expecting to dive in until I've had a few months to gather information and make a plan.

Any recommendations on directions to go in, or places to get started?

I don’t want to be too risky with this money as our stocks are already in the riskier area (although luckily getting us pretty good returns so far).

I've been looking into some turnkey company options in markets that seem to have a decent return. Also, been looking into Roofstock. Has anyone interacted with them or any turnkey companies that make sense?