Your best investment is in yourself.Consider going to college or learning a trade.Use the funds to invest in something that does not require much time so you can focus on learning.If you do decide to get into real estate, you may want to consider doing a house-hack.It will give you a place to live(potentially saving you a few hundred dollars from paying rent and also giving you training wheels for being a landlord).

- Would you be willing to sell a portion of your stocks to pull out some funds, OR, can you get a line of credit against your stock portfolio? 

Since you were an athlete, going into the 9 to 5 will seem even worse, but if you don't have the capital now, the 9 to 5 is the best way to keep producing capital over the years to fund more and more until you can match or exceed your work income with investment income.

We opted for option 3 for the safest bet in a stagnating market and tight funds.

If you win the bid, they let you and they raised the price up so you got screwed. yup I was a funding partner in one of those cabals  they went to auction with 5 to 10 mil every friday. 

Maybe not.. or maybe the exit really is to just wrap them up and sell them as portfolios of rentals we do see that a lot one hedge fund selling to the new hedge fund on the block. 

I have the funds to make some moves, but I want to make sure that I informed decisions to maximize potential. 

Were you able to get funded?

I have purchased multiple audible books such as Real Estate by the Numbers, Start with Strategy, The Book for Rental Property, The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down, and now I am reading Finding and Funding Great Deals.

Be sure they are out before you do, but the tenants often do not have the funds to deposit/move.