Another investment could be in a turnkey home with an experienced company to give you a positive cash flow on that.I am 60 years old now, and unfortunately, I had a brain annuerism and a stroke at age 54.

An ideal return on the investmentFocus on figuring out your exact needs/wants in a particular property.

Ideally I want to pursue something that will give me experience/knowledge that can be translated to my future real estate investing business.I've considered getting my real estate license and pursuing that career, although I live in NYC and real estate is highly competitve here from my understanding.

contractor here. i deal with this nonsense all the time. peope trying to nickle and dime you over every little thing only to wind up goin with the lower bid.

Couple of ideas:Money Makes Money Theme: Let them buy a share (or few) of stock/index fund in a UTMA account..The goal there is to, ideally, watch it grow over time.

Ideally you would find a company that has everything under one roof.

This solution ideally would lead to me becoming a property manager for other investors. 

Assuming current income for both units might be $1,700 ($900/$800) ideally the purchase price would be $170K or lower.So three things you need to get a handle on;  Comps, Property condition (Rehab), and Rental Market rates.Hope this helps.

Yes they are hard to come by @Matt Souza thats why I deal mostly with off market inventory.

Ideal situation would be something like 12% over 18 months with some points.