Best way to invest for foreign cash investors

[Ayyub Omer]

I know there are a lot of foreign all cash investors who I guess buy a property in L.A. or San Francisco or some other expensive market, and are basically content to collect a 2-3% return on their investment. These guys are hoping to avoid losing money, rather than to make money, I'm assuming. If they were a bit less risk averse, and a bit more eager to make a return, how would you suggest they invest? Should they try to flip houses from out of the country using all of the technology available nowadays? Are they better off just investing in the stock market? A lot of these guys don't qualify for mortgages, at least that's what I'm assuming for the purposes of this question, so they would only get the type of return you can expect from a free and clear property.

I know a couple of people in this situation, and it seems that the combination of not being local, and not having access to mortgages makes it difficult to do well investing in real estate, or at least in American real estate.