You also might be able to get away with a once a year Christmas card that has a $25 (nominal amount) gift card to a decent restaurant to thank them for their business.

You need to be able to document the improvements with receipts.There could be a "gift" aspect to this, too. 

I'm not sure how to go from there.I suspect I won't be able to gift the property to my daughter because I would still have loan on it. 

I was just gifted a decent amount of money from my Mom to do whatever I want with it so I want to learn and get into real estate investing.

No expenses are deductible on personal days.In this case - The IRS may come and tax you on the rent and disallow you any expenses.On a side note - Allowing a relative to live rent free may require the filing of a gift-tax return if above the annual exclusion.

They just sent me a happy 25th anniversary gift. 

Once him and his girlfriend moved in, they had got the lower unit a plant as a welcoming gift and in my opinion are just really great people.  

To make a long story short a relative has given me and my wife a large sum of money as a gift and we want to use this to purchase our first Condo/home.

She is going to put my name on the title and then gift it to me so I️ don’t have to pay for a down payment .

It sounds like the aunt gifted 1/2 of the property to her nephew, based on the above.