After you close the deal and all your accounts with current bank, go find a nice gift box, fill it with dog poop, write a nice note thanking the guy that gave you such poor advice.

I know it can’t be gifted but what transition can we do?

What a great gift to yourselves as you enter retirement...congratulations!

Has anyone ever bought a house from a family member using a "Gift of Equity"?

It’s not a sale or gift, but if needed to be as sale, i can sell to him for $1.

I was young, it was a gift in exchange for my life savings.

It's easiest on all concerned and the least financial impact on them.

House-hacking seemed to be the easiest strategy for a new investor.

Considering I'm still a student and have not started working full time.The easiest way to find out if you can be preapproved for a loan is to call the bank and ask.

However if you are simply looking to invest in the real estate market (ie you think values will go up and you want to benefit from rental income, but don't care about owning the actual houses directly), there are many types of passive REI that allow you to invest in real estate without needing to vet deals, organize, rehab, hire a PM, etc.The easiest of these is probably a REIT, which is like an ETF or mutual fund comprised entirely of commercial real estate investments (either direct investments (Equity REIT) or investments in the mortgages held by the owners of real estate (Mortgage REIT), or a combination of both (Hybrid REIT)).