It’s almost impossible without learning the analyze the deals to decode the good ones from the bad ones.

Unless of course you have some amazing partnership written agreement that had took all little details in consideration and you know for sure that you getting $24,000 returned to you no matter what happens.Her RE license is not at risk because it's a business transaction with you in partnership and business goes bad sometimes. 

If you want to use a conservative strategy, paying off your principal is not a bad idea.

That is a bad investment at that point in time. 

As @Aaron Klatt mentions, if you do bad work, it will affect the resale price of the property. 

@Jonathan Polanski The agent might be trying to buy for himself (conflict of interest), trying to keep the entire commission (horrible business practice), has had a bad past experience with your agent (unlikely but possible) or has a preferred investor lined up. 

It also might not be a bad idea for you to go down to the county tax assessor's office and see if you can convince someone to teach you how to use the system to find this stuff.

It's not a bad job, it pays the bills and provides pretty good healthcare insurance but it's not my passion.

Do not fool yourself into thinking you can bank on appreciation because that is how many people end up in a bad place in REI.

(Ex: Bad photos, weak descriptions, bad guest communication leading to poor reviews, etc.)So because of that, I would say choosing good management could be crucial to your receiving a high ROI.