I would save copies of their changes for your records.

Here are the options I thought up:Option 1: Save up money for a few more years until I have enough to buy a place all cash from a wholesalerOption 2: Aggressively pay down one of my mortgages (~$440k left at 6%) and cash out refinance in a few years to buy a place all cash from a wholesalerOption 3: Buy another house hackAll 3 of these will require me to put my value-all dreams on hold for a few years.

If you read some books and listen to podcasts and most importantly, find every local real estate investor meetup you will be taking action that will pay off when you have more savings to buy.

You might get more value from a financial planner or accountant if you want a little more help, such as retirement planning.

It seems like you enjoy being active and using your hands so maybe the BRRRR method (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat) is your best bet as you could save some money and do plenty on your own, you could also do a live in flip potentially and sell it or rent it out later.

Your former boss (retired) inspired you how?

All my properties are in a small regional area so I only have 1-2 people per task I need and I have all their numbers saved in my phone.

Pretend there are no closing costs, etc, so they just have the $200k that they’ve been eagerly saving for years to buy their $1M house.

Quote from @Andrew Montgomery: I just turned 50, I've worked a great W2 for 26 years in tech sales/mgmt and managed to save $3M across 401k ($2M) and Stocks ($1M).

holy cow 180k in interest on a 90k loan.. save up the 90k and dont borrow anything.