Gifting equity in a house may be more trouble than it is worth if you are not near the life-time exclusion1) Potentially having to get the property appraised everytime an equity is gifted2) Having a title company update the title every time3) Exemption of the gift tax return is normally for cash gifts below the annual gift tax exclusion, you may still need to file if you gift non-cash4) If there is partial ownership over several years, having to properly pro-rate certain items such as real estate taxes, mortgage interest and rental income if the property is a rentalBest of luck 

If I purchased a home locally I’d have to ask well beyond the market rate on rent just to break even.

The only other option that comes to mind is to make the improvements and try to achieve favorable rental rates to push the story that 2 BR homes rent for a premium because its unique.

The effort to foreclose, the limits on rates, etc.Maybe a unicorn to find HML that will loan him the necessary money, but I doubt he will find it.  

There are many STRs that do quite well in the suburbs of major cityies Off the top of my head, I can think of one of the STRs we manage that is 40 mins outside of Dallas and it has a great occupancy rate.

If I took my best guess, investor rates may settle around 7.5% for quite a while.

million in addition to their investors (who expect a reasonable rate of return) by keeping the rental rates at a fraction of the market rate?

What’s your success rate with mentees?

ConsiderationsCrime Rates: Some parts of Albuquerque have historically struggled with higher crime rates.

Further, running a very quick and simple valuation based on $900 rents, 8% vacancy, 25% op exp margin, and a 9% cap rate, I'm coming up with an ARV of around $83k, so I'd pass if I were you unless you can get a much lower purchase price.