I bought my primary residence 3 years ago with a 203k on a foreclosure I found that sat there for 7 years and I don’t know why but I never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Keep saving and tell your family you'd rather get cash than gifts for your birthday and Christmas.

Yes, we could be gifted some money and put that extra $30,000 down.

However buying a rental property that you lease to  your mom as an arms length transaction might be fine if you actually set up a lease, collected rent and reported it (you can gift it back to her legally within the federal limits so it washes).There are some timelines you do have to follow. 

A well capitalized person could give her a square deal and still make out ok if the numbers make sense.A life estate like Jay mentions is where she basically gifts the house in exchange for lifetime possession without upkeep hassles or lease payments. 

In 2007, 2010 I kept doing the same thing over and over.Fast forward to 2017 on the train a Tax Account told me that I have the gift of gab that I should go into real estate.

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Would love to share with you our personal app - my husband built a personal finances tracker app as a pet project for us (hellofin.app) and it sends me a text every time money goes in or out of our accounts, and we can add a tag to it (like "christmas gifts" rather than the generic bank terms "shopping").

@Will DoughertyWe're all over the map here....Selling to kids at less than fair market value (FMV) = gift tax exposure and possible gift tax filing obligations. 

And that can be gifted to her by a family member.