[littlesixsteve]

Dude your real estate depends on 3 things LOCATION, LOCATION & LOCATION.

As Pronto mentioned you will become a daddy to adult children if you buy in the worng section of town or wrong town period!

You will not work any easier in fact you will work harder keeping the place up.
Your Kids (if you have any) will reap the rewards by the time the place goes up in value.

Suggestions:
Buy in nice sections, Buy small maybe a 4 or 8 unit building that is managable.

Buying a 10 plus building
or one with an elevator you better have a pipline to $$ in case things break.

Another route is buy a few 1 bedroom condos in different locations. This will keep the tenannt to a single person or maybe a couple.. NO KIDS.
Once you go multi bedroom & kids come to the place you need to be careful for Lead paint, kid flying out the windows, etc, etc.

I am not knocking real estate just trying to lead you in the right direction.

With the money you have buy into a real estate Fund (REIT). that will go up over time & you will have no work to do.
The REIT funds own Malls, buildings, commercial properties, Hotels, Apartments all over the USA. Overtime all the REIT locations will go up in value. That is where I put my $$