The Norada Capital promissory notes do offer a high rate of return (interest), but I would not classify them as "high risk" because of the higher interest rates.To correct your comment, they ARE backed by hard assets and collateral.

There are no tax deductions for such gifts, however you have a $15k per recipient annual gift limit that avoids the chore of filing a gift tax return.

I have a pro forma  using very pessimistic occupancy/booking percentages (worst case scenarios) which identify a very nice cash on cash return, and the ARV will (again, pessimistically) be at least double the purchase+rehab costs. 

But if you are looking to buy and flip, you could see substantial returns.

At least it will show that someone put forth effort to return the money like you have been trying to do. 

I've been doing a deep dive looking at cash on cash return for various down payments and expenses on properties with a mortgage.

Plus if any of the materials are damaged, wrong, or of low quality you're going to be the one who has to deal with returns or exchanges. 

Rising cap rates are mostly tied to higher interest rates—when borrowing gets more expensive, investors expect better returns, which pushes cap rates up.

The returns have been about 7% or 16-21,000/year NET on my properties.

So Doorvest is getting everything that produces a high return and you get the aspects of real estate investing that have low a return.