He said he thinks drugs/meth was involved, and we're not likely to ever see a dime of restitution from the tenants since they have no money.

Avoid those pesky building permits and red tape. the Government is just trying to nickel and dime your seed capital away from you. 

Here on BP, many folks propose to move from investment/flipping to development, and part of what's missed in that type of transition is the learning on someone else's dime, the learning  of the development process in a disciplined, rigorous, professional manner.

I say keep every dime you can, stick it in a place you feel comfortable with for the next 3-5 years, whether that is savings, stocks, etc.

To me, as someone that grew up ridiculously poor, I completely understand the mindset of spending every dime that comes in; no one who lives that way worries about next week, much less next year.

Will I kick myself for not dumping every dime into real estate when I had the chance? 

You can read this article by @Matt Faircloth :Single Family Home Investing: An In-Depth Look at the Pros & ConsI have never invested in Single Family, only in Multi-Family with a one 2 family investment.I find that the higher the number of units per building, the more it has to do with the NUMBERS rather than emotions.For instance, SFRs which are usually sold as homes can change on a dime, as Matt pointed out, because of things that are related to the desire of a Home Owner looking for a home.

I am the ceo of TCM property management and we consistently see people managing their own property trying to save a buck but really they jump over a dime to save a penny anyways good luck my friend

There have definitely been multiple cases where adjacent buildings suffered damage during a natural disaster, but the insurance company refused to pay a dime and was not held liable in court.  

The worst case is that I never pay one dime early, and I've locked in 30-years of borrowing at under 5% interest on investment property, which is an amazing thing historically so we're happy to keep those loans for the whole 30 years if necessary, especially in a rising interest rate environment, and focus our new money on where it can earn us more than 5%.