It's a great way to build a cash vehicle that you can tap into at any time and the money will continue to grow for you even while you're accessing it.

So, without getting into the weeds, you could buy a fourplex, then build 2-3 ADUs for rental income.

Are people building in the area? 

Go to Etsy and search for "rental property tracker," and you will find hundreds of nice spreadsheets to track 10-20 rentals, usually for under $10.Software has extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button, and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.

You could probably live for free, build equity, and save more for your next purchase!

Purchase price: $2,225,000 Cash invested: $350,000 Purchased a 40k sqft ft mixed use building on Main st in Middletown, CT.

Once the development phase is completed minus the last part which is pull permit for the build, you have a building blue print in your hand, you can send the site plan and building plans out to your local builders for bids on the build.

If you have not run your own business beyond real estate before, I strongly recommend that you get in touch with SCORE (Service Corp of Retired Executives) at www.score.org.They are a free resource (part of SBA) that will help you to evaluate the financials of the company you're looking at buying, build a business plan and to understand what you're getting into. 

I promised that we would not build a new home; the home was his parent's, he wanted it to stay What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Some of those building had extreme structural damage that would need to be identified by an engineer or architect.