The question will come down to whether you think it's worth the effort for the $250 per month (before maintenance, any utilities, vacancies).

To @Ivan Barratt's point above: educating yourself on the various strategies is critical, so you don't jump into something with a wrong-fit partner/type/market, etc and find yourself down $200k.a few options come to mind: private lending ("be the bank")investing as a Limited Partner in a syndication (most options only open to Accredited investors)turnkey rental investing (granted, i think of this more as "semi-passive" since you still have to manage the property manager, requires a phone call or email every other month or so. at least, that's been our experience)you mentioned "no desire/skills to be come a landlord" and I think that's a reasonable expectation IF, you focus heavily on your skills that focus on the analysis and decisioning at the front-end. said simply: it's likely worth picking a strategy and then focusing your limited time/effort on developing the following: goal - have you set them?

You need to be compensated for the time, effort and risk of developing the property.

This may require you to up your price for the extra effort.

I’m a working stiff so don’t have much time to manage the construction efforts.

People get carried away at auction and end up paying more for a property than its actually worth especially if it looks like a great deal and not too much problem/efforts.  

I myself think that would be too large an effort without some local support.  

So when they attempt to steal, borrow or twist information their efforts fall short.and we are a community. and because we are a community word of mouth gets around. i am glad Juan took the time to express the view of an operator of a venue for REI Clubs.

Much less effort overall as well.

She goes well beyond her responsibilities as my buying and selling agent, and makes my deals as smooth and effort free as possible.I know she makes a commission, but I would like to send her a gift to show my appreciation.What is an appropriate gift in this situation?