There's an old Russian saying which loosely translates as:Of the 2 men arguing, one is necessarily an ***, and the other is a fool...Which are you...?  

Clearly that is not going to work for me, but that is the other low risk choice if one where keen at reducing risk of loosing funds in transit. 

You are a real estate person who should loose his license! 

It would be horrible to loose more money for a mistake that could have been reasonably avoided. 

. - If the owners don't redeem the property from you after the 3 year period, usually the bank will because the bank doesn't want to loose their collateral over a few thousand dollars in back taxes. 

Try to get the deposit back and move on..even if you win the law suit you will loose.....

You will loose some compounding rate of return for the time your loan is out so factor that in along with your time horizon to retirement.  

In my area you may not let your animal run loose .

@Chris MasonIMHO it’s a loosing proposition for most, not all, agents to mess with most “investors”.Think about it.

Jason Callahan , if you are an accredited investor there might be more passive income invest opportunities which you can tap into.My advice would be to diversify and only begin to invest with an amount you can afford to loose, say $100k