In terms of any tweaking the apartments’ performance, we are close to the end of much any tinkering, without pouring money into them for major upgrades.

(I'm from the hill-towns this place is located in and that's not uncommon for it to be so old.)There are homes in the area that come close in square footage and have sold recently for over $300,000 that are not lake-side and have less total property in terms of Acres.

My wife and I combined our finances when we got married and she became a stay-at-home-mom after our daughter was born, so there is some stress in terms of a large dollar investment. 

I dont think I would have thought about it in terms of helping them find what they are looking for because of the distance.

Hard money cost me 2 points and 12%, but had limited underwriting, they requested very little in terms of paperwork and the property could be very rugged (we had termites, rats nests, loose wires, holes in sheetrock, broken windows.)2.

I have been thinking about this lately in terms of how to build trust earlier on in my investor relationships as well as for custom home buyers. 

I would interview a few brokerages in the County and evaluate based on the managing broker, what is offered in terms of your status as a new licensee (mentoring, training, tech, sales support, etc.).

My criteria in terms of price range is $100k-$300k.                     

Also, in terms of tax basis, you also have to account for the depreciation taken (or not, the IRS doesn't care if your grandma actually claimed the depreciation deductions or not, they still count it) while the house was used as a rental. 5 years of rental to your brother, assuming at least $300k of the current value is the building, not the land (just for easy math). $300k/27.5 (depreciation schedule) = $10,909 * 5 years = $54,545 in total depreciation deductions (or thereabouts) for use as a rental.This amount gets deducted from your tax basis and is recaptured at 25% when you sell.

In terms of investment return potential, using less cash for an investment would bring you higher returns on that investment from a percentage standpoint.