The Biggerpockets Ultimate Beginners Guide (link below) is a good, free resource to help you get started.https://www.biggerpockets.com/files/user/brandonatbp/file/ultimate-beginners-guide-to-real-estate-investing 

Ultimately we had to fire him and go a different route.

The ultimate answer may still be no but this gives you the opportunity to get all the info before making that decision.

BP is the ultimate learning center for real estate investment.

The company can survive without an individual C-level - production, marketing, billing and receivables roll merrily on - because THAT is the company's bread and butter, not anything individual C-levels do - they do not "out-value" the hundreds of hourly people their compensation represents.If you can show me where I made a blanket statement, I will gladly concede that point.

I recommend the Ultimate Beginner's Guide.

But what I look for is city water and sewer, tenants pay all utilities (or most of it), and of course I ultimately want to rent out just the land (not the homes - but if I have to I'll do rent to own until their sold). 

Make sure your LLC contains a "buy out" provision and a provision for ultimately selling. 

Account Closed, check this post out from BP that was just reposted this week: https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2015/06/20/ultimate-guide-finding-incredible-mentors/.

Too much grey area and not worth the risk, but to still ultimately answer the question this is still not counted as a gift.