Focus on Being Agent or Investor

[Eric Stafford]

The Background: 

I have personal contacts in the commercial development space in Massachusetts / Rhode Island who have tried to nudge me into the business. I can't give up my full-time job, as I am the provider for the family, so the chance for exposure seemed to be as a part-time agent.  Since passing the exam, I now have young children as additions to the family.  Given that chaos, I never actually followed through with finding a sponsoring broker.  

I have sporadically tried to leverage this site for information and search for the right kind of broker for my situation. My opportunity falls within the commercial space but commercial brokers are "full time only" given most calls I've fielded with various brokers.

The Problem:

Given some recent developments, my connection started flipping commercial to a real estate investment fund that will take on "free standing ground leases with national tenants". Needless to say, in the past 6 weeks, I've missed out on roughly $100k in commissions.  Those deals came out of nowhere but I want to be prepared the next time it happens! I've always been focused on making $ through commissions but the opportunity now seems to be helping with the projects/deals and really learning on the investment side. 

I'm not an industry pro and, of course, I now wish I followed through and have been doing this for 3-4 years already. While working a full-time job, what's the best use of my time in this situation? Agent/commissions vs. facilitator/investor.

I understand that my issue might be an outlier in this section.  I'm open to a message or offline chat if you feel its not appropriate in this space.  Apologies for the long post.

Eric