I personally would rather have my house they can for several months instead of having it trash.On the flip side tenants that have been there extremely long he sends mother today's gifts along with vacations.

We used a partnership, I had my wife listed as 51% owner as a valentines gift :)

Every meeting there are giveaways like smoke detectors, CO detectors or gift cards for Home Depot. 

If you can gift your heirs cash flowing real estate they can rely on, I would think that is practically better then a massive stock portfolio. 

These are 3% down and allow you to source your downpayment from gifts or grants as well.

They would essentially gift the money from the lenders perspective, but from the 1031 perspective the funds will be transferred directly to escrow at closing so it may satisfy both sides.

An LLC might be a wise choice if you want to purchase many properties or take part in more intricate real estate deals.The owning of real estate under an LLC may have different tax consequences.

My thought was that we would ask for the money for down payment in the form of a “gift”, and then do all of the work of finding and purchasing the right property, budgeting and managing all of the renovations (and doing most of the labor ourselves), and selling in the span of 4-6 months. 

A great book I gift to new RE investors is Profit First by Mike Michalowicz and it goes into detail about what types of accounts to open as a business owner. 

It is a very intricate market for sure and it takes a lot to understand it but with the right team in place, it makes for a great place to grow a portfolio.