1. 380k2. 280kHe wants to spend $350-400k on primary.

Stop hanging out with your deadbeat buddies who spend all day drinking, talking sports, and otherwise wasting away.

If you are setting aside funds for capex, taxes, insurance, or other expenses that don't occur monthly, transfer those funds to Savings each month and hold them there until it's time to spend them.

New York is hard to evict people and you'll end up spending more time and money doing it yourself.

I'm completely lost at why people would spend money on class and workshop, when they can actually use that money and go find deals a bit outside of the expensive city we're in. $8,000 could got you started on a deal, or do a mailing list of some kind.

So you're willing to pay $30,000 for their furniture when you could spend $5,000 on your own?

I know you mentioned doing STR, but then you need to spend another $10k+ to get it furnished.

I already know that I can BRRRR a property (or something similar) and it'll yield a better return but I'm not interested in spending the time.

Asking strangers how to spend your money is a fool's errand.

If you are reinvesting it (highly unlikely), the time you are spending doing the work could be put to much better use.