Whats the better investment?

Why are these the only two options? A false choice is no choice at all.

$75K isn't much to get a financial advisor's time or attention. With that small a portfolio, you're better off buying three low-cost funds and forgetting about directly held stocks.

But there are endless options here, not just two.

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20 year loan (15% down 4.5% interest)

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I'm honestly curious where he is able to get this quote or am I missing something? Rates should be closer to 6% and typically 20% down unless running through some sort of reno loan/foreclosure.

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Invest it in iraqi dinars and sell high.

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FIFY

Not enough info to evaluate the duplexes, but just build a pro forma...

Financial advisors are a waste of money. You can outperform ~half of them on your own, before fees are calculated with 30 minutes of time invested. Think about it this way... say the "market" goes up something wild- 80% in a year... Almost all "advisors" putting you in unlevered long positions, which is all they can do, should make money- some will make 40% some will make 100%... But the average should be ~80%, since that is the "market."

Now, instead of giving some clown 100-200bps per year, you could match the average returns by just plowing into $SPY or $IVV for 7bps, which will give you exposure to ~85% of the "market" Almost every brokerage has access to one of these commission free.

Now here is where it gets really cool. Over 20 years (your stated time horizon), let's make two assumptions: your advisor is "only" charging you 200bps and he is an "average advisor" in terms of returns. Say Market CAGR over the next 20 years is 9% with DIRP. Over 20 years, the average fool with that 75k using an advisor would have ~$270,000. But if you skipped the advisor and did it yourself you'd have ~$380,000. That's a 410% return vs. a 260% return over 20 years. Now you're beating almost everyone who uses financial advisors. Winning is awesome and easy, and this is an easy way to win.

If you're able to find some wizard stock picker who's a CFA and went to HBS willing to take your 75k... go for it! But the guys who are good at picking stocks generally aren't financial advisors; They do buy side analysis for banks or funds and they charge 2 and 20. It's why the average financial advisor doesn't even achieve average returns... because they're competing against HBS wizards with far less capital and zero access to leverage. Because average financial advisors fail to even achieve average returns, you win even more bigly against the Joneses who use some general studies non-target bro at Northwestern Mutual. Financial Advisors are salesmen, not stock pickers. Now if you want to minimize risk, decrease Beta, etc. you need to invest more than 30 minutes or use a financial advisor because they actually do have some training on portfolio allocation and risk management and are useful to those who are completely financially illiterate. But concerning yourself with Beta is Beta and unnecessary in your hypothetical

TL;DR: Financial Advisors=Bad, $SPY=Good

I don’t understand the fascination with investing in rental properties,people seem to have the idea just buy a house/duplex,get some renters and the money just rolls in every month.The people I know that have rentals and the stories they tell,it’s a huge hassle that I couldn’t deal with.Friend of mine,that was his retirement plan-has 20 something rentals.He says he works harder and has more stress than he ever had before he retired.

Thanks, this is the kind of info I was looking for on the stock side.

I would probably max out 401k to yearly limit (19k), instead of just 6% of salary, before starting a brokerage account or investing in RE.

Depends on what kind of a person he is. With just 2 duplexes he would probably have to manage them himself. If he doesn't like dealing with people mutual funds are not going to call in the night and on weekends with issues.