Coupled with the fact that she has a much shorter time horizon at 60 than she would have at 30, 40 or 50, I would lean more towards getting this money into the hands of a fee based investment advisor and getting it deployed into exchange traded funds (or other suitable principal protected, low fee instruments) that will (if history is any indication) return her much more overall than the real estate portfolio will (if history is any indication), in a completely principal protected environment.  

This idea led me to start exploring more in depth how I could maximize my time to invest in real estate to grow my income and allow me to slowly move away from my current career as I scale my investment opportunities.I am 27 now and grew up in the family business environment ever since I was born, one of which was an apartment building with 11 units.  

I've been in a structured corporate engineering environment for a long time so this is a little scary!

The initiative stipulates "the people who have the income to afford it", but it's too reminiscent of pre-2008 to me, for the fragile Detroit housing environment.

I look at investors, not as adversaries but as customers that require an environment that will keep the rents at the top end of the market.

The most common complaint I'm hearing for investors is that there just aren't enough good deals available.I'm sure part of this has to do with the changing economic environment, and I wouldn't want to see the portals start getting into riskier deals just to keep volume up.

I'm really interested in meeting like-minded people and learning as much as I can to be successful.I'm not looking to be spoon-fed success ("give a man a fish") but would love some guidance in where to start as I'm only 20 and don't have a large net worth, but I do have a large interest and willingness to work as hard as I need to in order to succeed.I was in a webinar that suggest paying for "Pro" which I plan to purchase as soon as I get back from LA on the 4th of March.

We are all in the same boat I think or at least the big fish once were so don't be skeptical.

In a very low yield environment there is active competition for 12 to 14% investments. 

Geez, you are willing to spend time and gas money but don't know what to do wish the fish you find?