Complexity of buying for a family member

[Malik R.]

I hope I can explain my dilemma properly. I'm involved with buying the first rental property for our daughter. She wasn't available for the process so I made the offer in my name. The offer is accepted and we have about 30 days to close.

It's a 3 Bed, 2-1/2 bath single family home that is expected to rent for $1,500 in our market. Contract price is $225K and it may need about $2K in fixes. Property taxes will be about $2,300/year.

I'm looking for advice to simplify the mechanics of purchase and transfer to our daughter.  Since the agreement is in my name, title will also be in my name. I have excellent credit rating and available funds for a 20-25% down payment. After I find a lender, I can close it and have it titled in my name. I'm not sure how to go from there.

I suspect I won't be able to gift the property to my daughter because I would still have loan on it. 

My daughter has enough spare funds to pay the rest so it doesn't have to be financed and then I could transfer it to her but is that a good use of her funds rather than leveraging her cash?

Would it be more expensive to refinance if we just buy it for cash now and refinance after it is transferred to her name?