For my own conscience, I feel like I need to make this deal into more of a “partnership,” so that she has something financially to gain in this endeavor.

@Junji Yokota what kind of business entities (LLC, S-Corp, C-Corp, sole proprietorship, or partnership) do you have?

There's really no one-size-fits-all approach to partnerships.

If you are the owner, then you cannot co-own the property and not file a partnership tax return if the actual intention is the partnership between you guys. 

I am a new member of BP and listen to Real Estate and Money pod casts every week. Me and my wife are working on our plan to be financially independent and our goal is to replace our my W2 income in the next 10 years. ...

@Kyle C.There are lots of other options for investing $50K passively or at least semi-passively:- Private lending / promissory notes- Multi-family syndications- Self-storage syndications - Short term rentals without owning the property (arbitrage or partnerships)There are a lot of investors out there that start with single family and small multi-family rentals.

Look for a layout that functions well-this again doesn't mean for you, but in general. 

I did mine that way, I found a simple family investment partnership agreement and used that (it was not strictly real estate related, so it won't work for what you want).

@Brian GarrettROI and $ yield are not a function of purchase price but rather a function of rent levels in proportion to property cost, correct ?

What terms/partnership structure would you offer partner that is bringing much more cash to deal for land purchase and build?