Dris,
Thanks for posting.
A real eye opener is to do some mathematical calculations on your $280,000.
For simplicity sake, let’s just round things off to $250,000 and assume a 10% growth factor, (a fairly common yardstick for ROR in the stock market in mutual funds…yet even that requires prudent research).
The $250,000, compounded at 5 years out, grows to 402,000.
The $250,000, compounded at 10 years out, grows to 648,000.
The $250,000, compounded at 15 years out, grows to 1,044,000.
The $250,000, compounded at 20 years out, grows to 1,681,000.
Notice how in the first 5 years your gain is approximately $150,000…while in the last 5 years, (20th year amount less 15th year amount), your gain is 637,000.
So would you first want to run to the stock market and start taking advantage of the 10% return while you figure out how you can do even better with real estate investing?
I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t trust my money anywhere until I was comfortable with where I was parking it.
A Certificate of Deposit is a nice vehicle to park it in…which will give you some breathing room while you do the following:
a) Go to your nearest Home Improvement store and purchase some track shelving for erecting book shelves.
b) Make your nearest public library your best friend. There’s no need to make purchases on books or CD’s that claim quick riches…there are plenty of valuable free sources of information.
I would give yourself at least 6 months to think some things through.
9 months or a year would probably be better.
Think of whom you inherited from. Do them good by being careful in your choices.
A good book that I read was Real Estate Riches, by Dolf DeRoos. It is available in both written and audio format.
In it, Dolf explains the many advantages that real estate has over the stock market or other investment vehicles.
But you have to keep in mind that nobody is going to hand over some perfect piece of income property. You have to hunt for it.
If the real estate books are getting a little boring…read about Sam Walton and how frugal he was. How he and his associates would bring sleeping bags to hotel rooms when they were camping out in New York City when meeting with suppliers.
You need to hone an attitude of buying things on the cheap.
Do you know how copper wire was invented?
Two guys were fighting over a penny… 
Best of luck to you.
-Mike