That would allow you to put your money to work, thrive in your career, and have the time to dedicate to your family.If you're interested in a more hands-on approach, then as others have mentioned, use the capital as a down payment to buy your own property. 

DFW, Austin, Houston, and even San Antonio are all thriving cities in many aspects, real estate included. 

The lending programs of the SBA give small businesses a chance to grow and thrive.

I don't really have a specific niche that I am looking into at the moment so any input or suggestions would be helpful (but I think most of this is just preference, something I have to continue to explore personally).Quick snippet about me, I have been working for a property tax appeal company for about 9 years(with the exception of the year I took off to move to Greenwich Village Manhattan and did some extensive traveling while one of my companies was thriving).

Houston County (Warner Robins) is thriving running a surplus every year, has a growing population and high end jobs, amazing schools throughout the county, and is constantly developing infrastructure to keep up with the growth.

As a company, we not only survived, but we thrived during the last recession because we were transparent with our communication, we had complete and total buy-in from all of our team members and we instilled trust in our owners.  

For multi-family, most of us will survive.I thrive during downturns because there are good deals. 

Street level and local necessity based retail has demand and a place to thrive.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment in Hammond.

Purchase price: $50,000

Cash invested: $25,000

Sale price: $135,000

Fix and flip.

We removed an ugly homemade green house from the otherwise nice-sized back yard.