Putting a down payment by the end of the year on a rental propertyIf there’s any general advice, tips, or just encouragement, I thank you in advance

If so, I encourage you to think about this as a business and realize that you WILL have expenses beyond that. 

If your objective is cash flow, I would strongly encourage you to look at markets that not only cash flow well but have a good combination of cash flow and economic/demographic trends.

Listening to these books over and over (dozens of times) not only made the task of cleaning buildings a lot more tolerable, but it began to shape my thought process and also gave me encouragement to keep going."

I don’t encourage flipping from a distance. 

Hi @Patrick Fermo, Welcome to BP, I always encourage going out and meeting/networking with as many investors as you can.

I don't recall all the details around that.A couple questions/scenarios to confirm:1) They are wanting to pass the property on and have encouraged us to look for another place - they would like to transfer their ownership to us, which I assume means gifting.

Encouraging your unsupervised exposure to the listing broker is only putting you in harms way. 

Thanks for the encouragement!

This isn't always the case, so I would encourage you to talk to your lender about this before moving forward.One strategy I see many clients use to hold onto favorable rates is by implementing land trusts into the equation.