I was in a position where I had nothing to show for my efforts in life save a family that I deeply love. 

And when you recommend looking ahead with your numbers, do you mean making sure you're saving enough to afford another down payment at the end of the year?

If you are going to manage the property yourself then you must remember that any savings from managing yourself is NOT a Return On Investment.

You create systems so you don't have much time needed to manage (even remotely) and you save the PM fee.My tenants pay via Zelle or they deposit into my account at my bank.

Currently I'm saving money to make my first purchase and I feel as though this would be a strong way to network and create relationships.

If the “partner” and the actual heirs aren’t working together, I’d walk away and save myself the headache and time you are sure the get from this.

This has saved our butts probably 10 times with slippery tenants.In one very recent instance, a commercial tenant edited the lease to swap a Corporation out for his personal lessee status (AKA removing him as a guarantor), and literally added the Landlord's signature on it. 

I would rather keep my cash any day than put it to work on a mediocre property and area and hope for the best strategy.If you are worth millions and want to take  a small percentage of your money and take a roll of the dice on something that is different than saving up a long time to get started and buy a mediocre property and it becomes nothing but headaches and saddles an investor with bad debt so when a good deal actually comes along they are stuck.

That said, I figured that I might get some good feedback from all of you to save me some trouble or at least help me narrow down the field!

Have any of you considered or do any of you put that money into a CD equal to the length of the lease so you can gain a significantly greater amount of interest on that money you will hold onto for the foreseeable future rather than letting it sit in a low yield savings account.