Spend your driving time and downtime looking for distressed properties, aka drive for dollars. do research in this and what others have done....find properties, get it under contract and wholesell. won't cost you much. build savings and credit, start branching to flipping and rentals or whatever you want.

In the midst of everything, I feel like its time to branch out and start being in business for myself?

Always looking to branch out into new areas of business.  

My daytime job, I work in the industry as a branch manager in a mortgage company, but in my soul?

Boy I would hate to be the child of a mr. money mustache mom, "What do you mean I can't fashion this tree branch into a bat!"

I will shoot for more of course but I really don't need, nor expect, to "get rich quick" from this.Wholesaling for a few reasons 1) I want to build capital more quickly (yes, I know what naysayers will say about this - I really cannot explain in a post where I'm coming from on this so I'll stop trying). 2) I primarily want freedom to work for myself. 3) Deals I had access to going the "traditional" routes for the last 8 months have gotten me nowhere fast, i.e. wholesaling will give me access to deals that would be beneficial to me in building and branching out my own RE portfolio of either fix-n-flips but I am primarily/ultimately interested in obtaining rentals.

@Steve Rick i felt this topic is most important to a investor in transition and some one new to putting there money to work i'm also from NJ Long Branch/Deal so i understand the difference in what our money's ability here and somewhere else i been analyzing different states and properties for a while and now im investing out of state its so much potential everywhere its just about narrowing it down and zooming in on the best opportunity available then maximizing that deal to the fullest extent.

We thought that if we could be successful with those properties, who says we can’t pick up more properties there or branch out to other cities, or even out of state.

Branched out to real estate during the crash.

And now this...I'll just have to become a branch of the government and float my tenants rents...nobody even know how long this will last...