Richard, i think that is a great thing to do for your parents and is a good plan. if you have any siblings, just make sure you get everything in writing about the deal and that you will pay off the debt in the mean time and that it will be yours, just to avoid any future arguments. 

Hi @Powell CheeI'm a local Indy investor and have experience with some folks both here in town and locally who love to place debt on these smaller multifamily deals.

For example, does one of your properties have enough equity that you could put all the debt associated with it AND THAT DEBT associated with another property into it? 

Here is my situation:  I have paid nearly all my debt. 

Or a list of properties with low amounts of debt on them to have a full list of properties to do potential seller financed deals with?

Not kids at the moment, and we are  good savers with very little debt (School loans under $6k) and credit cards are pretty much paid off each month.

but to no one's fault but my own I was unable to keep the business afloat when real estate plummeted a few years ago.So now I work for the dredging and beach restoration industry and spend weeks and sometimes more than a month away from my family.

I had 10k worth of debt, and 10k in the bank.In early 2009, I took a look at my 401k, and found I had 30k in it.  

I have NO credit card debt, car loan or short term debt.

Definitely start first by getting educated about the various ways to get started, then consider all of the methods against your current resources (cash/credit/network/skill-set/income/assets/debt/time/knowledge/experience/etc...), desires, likes/dislikes, near-term, medium-term and long-term goals, and time that you have to devote to doing REI.