A nice lady in her early 80's wants to rent a ranch-style apartment. 

My obstacle with FHA financing was convincing the lender that I will use it as primary residence and not as an investment property.

Anyway, hopefully J can chime in here with what will be a much more coherent and useful reply!

Do well at REI, show interest in her interests, and she'll come around.  

Worst case- I paid $9000 for a 20 acre goat/horse ranch on the edge of town with a lot of existing roads and riding obstacles!

She aquired her properties by and through her father who has passed, she has not done a deal since he passed 5 years ago because he was the catalyst for purchases, she dosent have a clue how to go about this beause she has a management company deposit $7k a month in her bank and thats what she lives off of (as daddy planned).

Even had a Home Depot employee tell me her landlord installed one in her small apartment and that it heats and cools more than adequately.

A beginner asked me yesterday, what's the best way to raise money without taking chances and get into Real Estate Investing even in Boston, Massachusetts.I suggested one way was to get a 9-5 in her field and the money earmarked for retirement/401k (or put away 10-20%) could be used for Real Estate Investing, specifically Buy-Fixup-Sell/Rent.

She was happy, I felt great and we became partners in her properties.When I was a young investor I learned not to make other peoples problems my own but at about middle age I started making an exception to that rule for the elderly, and have never regretted it.

What are you looking to invest in here in Wilmington?