Sounds like they are in a pretty good situation unless taxes and insurance costs are going to eat heavily into cash flow or the properties all need cap x improvements and they would rather sell than fix them up.I would have buyers for these if that is what they are looking for.

Everybody has to eat so I'm not going to go into the ethics of it but you have to go into this eyes wide open that public adjusting like this is not, in my opinion, a job to use to get knowledge and experience in property management.  

You ask - honey, what can I eat right now?

And this has worked and I gave the credit.Kind of "have your cake and eat it too".....

We have a good amount of equity in our current home, we have saved a good nest egg in standard investments (that we could tap into), and we do have $100k + in cash. 

After all, we all gotta eat.

The transaction costs of buying and selling a home (particularly the sell side) really eats into the margins.

one option would be using it to BRRRR enough properties to generate the desired amount of monthly profit in the end. as far as cash vs down payment, if you want to build more wealth over time, i would definitely use debt so that you can buy 'more' ($) real estate. leaving it in index funds isn't a BAD idea, but if you have the resources (time/knowledge) to invest in RE & do it wisely, you will likely come out so much farther ahead. another question here is, how much monthly income are you looking for this nest egg to generate in retirement?

It's 2024, Rates have been eating at investors. 99% of listings have tenants underpaying rent by 50%.

Just make sure the cost of building and selling won't eat up too much of your potential profit.