Gift money for family or buy a rental for family?

[Jason Burkart]

Complicated post and I realize this might be more geared to a CPA, but figured I would try here and see if anyone else has come across a similar situation. Will itemize for brevity purposes:

- Mother wants to move to Saint George, Utah and get a home in a 55+ community

- Me (son) has cash and wants to buy the home for her. Budget is roughly 400k - 500k. 

- I am a high income earner who lives in TX and we have no state income tax. I have no other passive income. 

- From a tax perspective, do I gift her the cash and she goes about it her own with the deed her in name? Do I pay for it and put both of us on the deed? Do I buy it and treat it as a rental property. The catch is she is retired and won't have income except SS, thus I would be paying for everything...the HOA, repairs, utilities, insurance, etc. Or should I have her pay me under market rent and then if she ever needs money for whatever I can just send her $500 on Venmo here and there. Looking for any ideas on how to best approach this. I have not spoken to a CPA yet and am just scratching the surface on this topic. I tried to some AI searches, but they were mostly inconclusive.

- Mom is 73. Who knows how long she has left, but long term I would expect to keep this in my portfolio as a rental property.