Enlighten me on the best way to go about investing 200k+ in cash

[Alison Lee]

I have been renting a house out that is 180 miles from where I live. We used to live in the house but moved out 2 years ago. We've rented it out for the past two years but have decided to sell it and buy properties closer to where we now live.

I'm expecting to clear around 200-220k on the sale. The area of rural Western Kentucky in which i live has opportunities where rental style houses sell for 50k if you know where to look. We were considering trying to buy 3-4 of these types of properties using cash money from the above sale. I can probably strong arm my way into these situations and buy these places for 40k with a cash offer. 

My other thought was to build a nice duplex or triplex. Is it more expensive to build new than buy existing? Is my idea sound? Should i borrow money instead of paying cash?? How would you handle 220k?