Hello BP Community, from a useless broker in Los Angeles

[Joe J.]

I was about to post a general question regarding my brokers license but realized I probably need to provide a bit of my context in order to appropriately convey the question I have so I figured I'd introduce myself as I have been lurking for some time.  The question is, "What should I be doing with my brokers license?"

A little about myself: My name is Joe from Los Angeles.  I have been working in the corporate finance world for the last 14 years in various industries.  When I'm not spending my time at my full time job, I'm spending time with my beautiful wife and 2 young boys.  I've always been fascinated with real estate but haven't really been active as an investor.

My wife and I don't make a ton of money (relative to Los Angeles), but we are relatively frugal and are able to slowly save.  We bought our first house near the peak of the market in 2005 and saw it decline 50% in value by 2009.  As rough as that was, we continued to live there until we just sold in January of this year virtually at the same price we bought back in 2005 (at least we recouped our down payment and principle payments made).  We also bought our first and only rental in 2012.

My current sentiment is that prices seem fairly high in my area and I am reluctant to buy/hold another rental right now.  I'm willing to buy a primary residence but am having a hard time finding something I'm happy with in this low-inventory environment.  That being said, I am currently thinking about out-of-state investing, flips, private lending, etc.  BP has been a great resource to learn and read different perspectives I normally would not cross paths with.  

I got my California brokers license about 7 years ago (before the sales experience requirement) and haven't used it once!  I know it seems like a waste but my intent was to get it before having kids and that I would eventually use it sometime in the future.  My wife also got her sales license earlier this year.  We really have no plan on how to leverage our licenses but wanted to see if anybody might have some recommendations on how a dual income family with little time to spare can make use of our licenses that are collecting dust at this point.  Eventually my plan was for us to do our own deals going forward but I wanted to gauge the community here to see if there could be other options we have.

I appreciate any feedback and also wanted to provide an introduction.  Thanks BP!

--Joe