.- Currently renting an apartment in New York, but planning to relocate to Massachusetts with my wife.- Eyeing areas like Worcester, Shrewsbury, Grafton, and Millbury for a single-family house, priced around $500K, with a planned $100K down payment.

To confirm, the idea is that the owner would exchange proceeds from the home sale,  for fractional ownership in an REIT institutional grade property with an intermediary (1031 portion).  

A DST is a hands-off, institutional grade real estate investment (apartments, self storage, commercial, medical office, etc), that allows the investor the option to diversify into multiple markets around the country.

A DST is 1031 eligible  hands-off, institutional grade real estate investment (apartments, self storage, commercial, medical office, etc), that allows the investor the option to diversify into multiple markets around the country.

With the addition of 2 kiddos, my family has recently relocated back to MA.

@Joe Villeneuve I come from the "professional shops", the Institutional Private Equity and REIT industry, that's exactly how it's done when investments are evaluated, your Financials do not show any profit until all of your initially invested cash has been repaid by the Asset via Monthly, Quarterly, Annually distributions, or at the closing of Sale.

We're both eager to diversify into real estate investments.Although our home base is in New Hampshire, we're open to  investing wherever we can maximize our returns.Primarily interested in multi-family investment properties to leverage our first-time homebuyer loans effectively.Initially, our focus was on purchasing properties in the New England Region (mainly NH & MA).

"Stocks have returned, on average, about 8% to 12% per year while real estate has generated returns of 2% to 4% per year," says Peter Earle, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research.

Private lender is probably a good option if you need to act quickly and may not qualify under the institutional lending guidelines. 

That land doesn't convert to cash for a downpayment, unless its encumbered or sold and no institution is going to lend on a $20M piece of property.